Joy is not necessarily the absence of suffering, it is the presence of God.
– Sam Storms
Joy | Suffering | God
Joy is the serious business of Heaven.
– C.S. Lewis
Heaven | Joy
I cannot even imagine where I would be today were it not for that handful of friends who have given me a heart full of joy. Let’s face it, friends make life a lot more fun.
– Chuck Swindoll
Friendship | The Heart | Joy
Joy is Strength
– Mother Teresa
Joy
If you have no joy, there’s a leak in your Christianity somewhere.
– Billy Sunday
Joy | Christianity
You will find a joy in overcoming obstacles.
– Helen Keller
Overcoming | Joy
The Bible teaches that true joy is formed in the midst of the difficult seasons of life.
– Francis Chan
The Bible | Joy
The mere fact itself that God’s will is irresistible and irreversible fills me with fear, but once I realize that God wills only that which is good, my heart is made to rejoice.
– A. W. Pink
Joy
The joy of the Lord will arm us against the assaults of our spiritual enemies and put our mouths out of taste for those pleasures with which the tempter baits his hooks.
– Matthew Henry
Contentment | Enemies | Joy
Those who know where the treasure lies joyfully abandon everything else to secure it.
– D. A. Carson
Joy | Heaven
Joy is distinctly a Christian word and a Christian thing. It is the reverse of happiness. Happiness is the result of what happens of an agreeable sort. Joy has its springs deep down inside. And that spring never runs dry, no matter what happens. Only Jesus gives that joy. He had joy, singing its music within, even under the shadow of the cross.
– S.D. Gordon
Joy | Happiness
Begin to rejoice in the Lord, and your bones will flourish like an herb, and your cheeks will glow with the bloom of health and freshness. Worry, fear, distrust, care-all are poisonous! Joy is balm and healing, and if you will but rejoice, God will give power.
– A. B. Simpson
Worship | Healing | Joy
How divinely full of glory and pleasure shall that hour be when all the millions of mankind that have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb of God shall meet together and stand around Him, with every tongue and every heart full of joy and praise! How astonishing will be the glory and the joy of that day when all the saints shall join together in one common song of gratitude and love, and of everlasting thankfulness to this Redeemer! With that unknown delight, and inexpressible satisfaction, shall all that are saved from the ruins of sin and hell address the Lamb that was slain, and rejoice in His presence!
– Isaac Watts
Heaven | Joy | Thankfulness
Seek to cultivate a buoyant, joyous sense of the crowded kindnesses of God in your daily life.
– Alexander MacLaren
Joy
Joy is best sown in broken ground.
– Jack Wellman
Joy | Grief
The only lasting and fully satisfying joys for any man lie on the other side of a cross.
– Walter J. Chantry
Joy
It is His joy that remains in us that makes our joy full.
– A. B. Simpson
Contentment | Joy
The Lord gives his people perpetual joy when they walk in obedience to him.
– Dwight L. Moody
Joy
To pursue joy is to lose it. The only way to get it is to follow steadily the path of duty, without thinking of joy, and then, like sheep, it comes most surely unsought, and we “being in the way,” the angel of God, bright-haired joy, is sure to meet us.
– Alexander MacLaren
Joy
We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.
– Helen Keller
Patience | Joy
When our lives are filled with peace, faith and joy, people will want to know what we have.
– David Jeremiah
Examples | Holiness | Joy
The very nature of Joy makes nonsense of our common distinction between having and wanting.
– C.S. Lewis
Contentment | Joy
A soul may be in as thriving a state when thirsting, seeking and mourning after the Lord as when actually rejoicing in Him; as much in earnest when fighting in the valley as when singing upon the mount.
– John Newton
Joy
There is a joy which is not given to the ungodly, but to those who love Thee for Thine own sake, whose joy Thou Thyself art. And this is the happy life, to rejoice to Thee, of Thee, for Thee; this it is, and there is no other.
– Augustine
Joy
The joys of heaven are not the joys of passive contemplation, of dreamy remembrance, of perfect repose; but they are described thus: “They rest not day nor night.” “His servants serve Him, and see His face.”
– Alexander MacLaren
Joy | Heaven
You may be lonely, poor, and cold, neglected by the children, forgotten by your friends, yet may have the glad Christmas joy in your heart as Paul had, shut up in prison cells at Rome!
– John R. Rice
Christmas | Joy
I was delivered from the burden that had so heavily suppressed me. The spirit of mourning was taken from me, and I knew what it was to truly rejoice in God my Savior.
– George Whitefield
Joy
No one can get Joy by merely asking for it. It is one of the ripest fruits of the Christian life, and, like all fruits, must be grown.
– Henry Drummond
Joy
Hope fills the afflicted soul with such inward joy and consolation, that it can laugh while tears are in the eye, sigh and sing all in a breath; it is called “The rejoicing of hope.”
– William Gurnall
Hope | Joy | Laughter
Do not let the empty cup be your first teacher of the blessings you had when it was full. Do not let a bard place here and there in the bed destroy your rest. Seek, as a plain duty, to cultivate a buoyant, joyous sense of the crowded kindnesses of God in your daily life.
– Alexander MacLaren
Joy
After grief for sin there should be joy for forgiveness.
– A. W. Pink
Forgiveness | Grie | fJoy
Joy, not grit, is the hallmark of holy obedience. We need to be light-hearted in what we do to avoid taking ourselves too seriously. It is a cheerful revolt against self and pride.
– Richard J. Foster
Joy | Obedience
It is the consciousness of the threefold joy of the Lord, His joy in ransoming us, His joy in dwelling within us as our Saviour and Power for fruitbearing and His joy in possessing us, as His Bride and His delight; it is the consciousness of this joy which is our real strength. Our joy in Him may be a fluctuating thing: His joy in us knows no change.
– Hudson Taylor
The Holy Spirit | Joy | Strength
Happiness is untested delight. Joy is delight tested.
– Jack Hyles
Happiness | Joy
Oh, the joy of young ideas painted on the mind, in the warm, glowing colors fancy spreads on objects not yet known, when all is new and all is lovely!
– Hannah More
Children | Youth | Joy
If the life of Christ is flowing through us, the water from the Rock turning the wheel, as it flows into the heart, it will fill us with joy; and if so, we cannot contain it, it must flow out.
– G.V. Wigram
Joy
There is no virtue in the Christian life which is not made radiant with joy; there is no circumstance and no occasion which is not illuminated with joy. A joyless life is not a Christian life, for joy is one constant recipe for Christian living.
– William Barclay
Joy
There is no joy in the world like the joy of bringing one soul to Christ.
– William Barclay
Joy | Evangelism
Sorrow does not take away, but adds to the Christian’s joy.
– Lester Roloff
Joy
Tears of joy are like the summer rain drops pierced by sunbeams.
– Hosea Ballou
Happiness | Joy
If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.
– C.S. Lewis
Good and Evil | Freedom | Joy
Find joy in the ordinary.
– Max Lucado
Joy
Discontents are sometimes the better part of our life. I know not which is the most useful. Joy I may choose for pleasure; but adversities are the best for profit; and sometimes these do so far help me, that I should, without them, want much of the joy I have.
– Owen Feltham
Discontentment | Adversity | Joy
We rejoice in spite of our grief, not in place of it.
– Woodrow Kroll
Grief | Joy
Holy joy will be oil to the wheels of our obedience.
– Matthew Henry
Joy | Obedience
All joy emphasizes our pilgrim status; always reminds, beckons, awakens desire. Our best havings are wantings.
– C.S. Lewis
Contentment | Joy | Status
The world looks for happiness through self-assertion. The Christian knows that joy is found in self-abandonment. ‘If a man will let himself be lost for My sake,’ Jesus said, ‘he will find his true self.’
– Elisabeth Elliot
Happiness | Joy
A certain joyful, though humble, confidence becomes us when we pray in the Mediator’s name. It is due to Him; when we pray in His name it should be without wavering. Remember His merits, and how prevalent they must be. “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace.”
– Assorted Authors
Prayer | Joy
In the long run, there can be no joy for anybody until there is joy finally for us all.
– Frederick Buechner
Joy
Every man rejoices twice when he has a partner of his joy; a friend shares my sorrow and makes it but a moiety, but he swells my joy and makes it double.
– Jeremy Taylor
Marriage | Joy
Let a man begin with an earnest “I ought,” and if he perseveres, by God’s grace he will end in the free blessedness of “I will.” Let him force himself to abound in small acts of duty, and he will, by and by, find them the joyous habit of his soul.
– Frederick W. Robertson
Perseverance | Joy
Oh, what great happiness and bliss, what exaltation it is to address oneself to the Eternal Father. Always, without fail, value this joy which has been accorded to you by God’s infinite grace.
– John of Kronstadt
Happiness | Joy
When the heart is full of joy, it always allows its joy to escape. It is like the fountain in the marketplace; whenever it is full it runs away in streams, and so soon as it ceases to overflow, you may be quite sure that it has ceased to be full. The only full heart is the overflowing heart.
– Charles Spurgeon
Joy
Before a saint arrives at the stage of spirituality he is sure to be dwelling in a mixed condition. Not content with a quietude in his spirit, he will seek a joyous feeling.
– Watchman Nee
Character | Joy
Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm and our intelligence aglow.
– Helen Keller
Patience | Fire | Joy
Man cannot live without joy; therefore when he is deprived of true spiritual joys it is necessary that he become addicted to carnal pleasures.
– Thomas Aquinas
Carnality | Happiness | Joy
Be good; keep your feet dry, your eyes open, your heart at peace and your soul in the joy of Christ.
– Thomas Merton
Christ | The Heart | Joy
You must submit to supreme suffering in order to discover the completion of joy.
– John Calvin
Suffering | Joy
There are joys which long to be ours. God sends ten thousands truths, which come about us like birds seeking inlet; but we are shut up to them, and so they bring us nothing, but sit and sing awhile upon the roof, and then fly away.
– Henry Ward Beecher
Truth | Apathy | Joy
I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy.
– C.S. Lewis
Happiness | Joy
Like supernatural effervescence, praise will sometimes bubble up from the joy of simply knowing Christ. Praise like that is…delight. Pure pleasure! But praise can also be supernatural determination. A decisive action. Praise like that is…quiet resolve. Fixed devotion. Strength of spirit.
– Joni Eareckson Tada
Praise | Joy
The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world’s joy.
– Henry Ward Beecher
Life | Joy
Back of the clouds, the sun is always shining.
– Jack Hyles
Joy
Happiness is caused by things that happen around me, and circumstances will mar it; but joy flows right on through trouble; joy flows on through the dark; joy flows in the night as well as in the day; joy flows all through persecution and opposition.
– Dwight L. Moody
Joy
There is no greater joy in the Christian life than to trust Him and need no explanation.
– Jack Hyles
Joy | Trust
When large numbers of people share their joy in common, the happiness of each is greater because each adds fuel to the other’s flame.
– Augustine
Happiness | Joy
Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.
– Karl Barth
Gratitude | Joy
I think beloved, it will not be hard for you to learn. The angels of heaven rejoice over Sinners that repent: saints of God, will not you and I do the same? I do not think the church rejoices enough. We all grumble enough and groan enough: but very few of us rejoice enough. When we take a large number into the church it is spoken of as a great mercy; but is the greatness of that mercy appreciated?
– Charles Spurgeon
Joy
At the least bear patiently, if thou canst not joyfully.
– Thomas a Kempis
Patience | Joy
The joy of Christ and the joy of the world cannot consist together. A heart delighted with worldly joy cannot feel the consolations of the Spirit; the one of these destroys the other: but in sanctified trouble, the comforts of God’s word are felt and perceived in a most sensible manner.
– Abraham Wright
Joy | Worldliness
Joy has nothing to do with material things, or with a man’s outward circumstance … a man living in the lap of luxury can be wretched, and a man in the depths of poverty can overflow with joy.
– William Barclay
Joy
But life’s joys are only joys if they can be shared.
– Ravi Zacharias
Life | Joy
Do you want comfort? Nothing can give it so much as the thought of His coming. There may be sorrow in the night, but joy enough–fullness of joy–in that morning when we shall see Him as He is: fullness of joy in being like Him and with Him for evermore.
– G.V. Wigram
Joy
The test of Christian character should be that a man is a joy-bearing agent to the world.
– Henry Ward Beecher
Joy
Just as worship begins in holy expectancy, it ends in holy obedience. If worship does not propel us into greater obedience, it has not been worship.
– Richard J. Foster
Joy | Obedience
Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy.
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Gratitude | oy
The joys of heaven are not the joys of passive contemplation, of dreamy remembrance, of perfect repose; but they are described thus: “They rest not day nor night.” “His servants serve Him, and see His face.”
– Alexander MacLaren
Joy | Heaven
I call the New Testament the Book of Joy. There is nowhere in the world another book that is pervaded with such a spirit of exhilaration.
– Henry Ward Beecher
Scripture | Joy
Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.
– Helen Keller
Happiness | Joy
Seek to cultivate a buoyant, joyous sense of the crowded kindnesses of God in your daily life.
– Alexander MacLaren
Joy
The joy of Christ and the joy of the world cannot consist together. A heart delighted with worldly joy cannot feel the consolations of the Spirit; the one of these destroys the other: but in sanctified trouble, the comforts of God’s word are felt and perceived in a most sensible manner.
– Abraham Wright
Joy | Worldliness
How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose!… You drove them from me, You who are the true, the sovereign joy. You drove them from me and took their place, You who are sweeter than all pleasure.
– Augustine
Joy
The purest joy in the world is joy in Christ Jesus. When the Spirit is poured down, His people get very near and clear views of the Lord Jesus. They eat His flesh and drink His blood. They come to a personal cleaving to the Lord. They taste that the Lord is gracious. His blood and righteousness appear infinitely perfect, full, and free to their souls. They sit under His shadow with great delight. They rest in the cleft of the rock. Their defense is the munitions of rocks. They lean on the Beloved. They find infinite strength in Him for the use of their soul – grace for grace – all they can need in any hour of trial and suffering to the very end.
– Robert Murray McCheyne
Jesus | Joy
Christianity wants nothing so much in the world as sunny people, and the old are hungrier for love than for bread, and the Oil of Joy is very cheap, and if you can help the poor on with a Garment of Praise it will be better for them than blankets.
– Henry Drummond
Christianity | Joy
The reflections on a day well spent furnish us with joys more pleasing than ten thousand triumphs.
– Thomas a Kempis
Joy
Most of those who fail to experience the joy of the Lord have refused to take up a cross!
– Walter J. Chantry
Joy
To pursue joy is to lose it. The only way to get it is to follow steadily the path of duty, without thinking of joy, and then, like sheep, it comes most surely unsought, and we “being in the way,” the angel of God, bright-haired joy, is sure to meet us.
– Alexander MacLaren
Joy
What think we of Christ? Is He altogether glorious in our eyes, and precious to our hearts? May Christ be our joy, our confidence, our all. May we daily be made more like to Him, and more devoted to His service.
– Matthew Henry
Faithful | Joy | Service
If you and I are to meet Christ with joy when He comes, we must make quite sure that our consciences are up to the mark with Him where He is in God’s presence; able to be in identification with Him up there in the light: if not, you will not be able to meet His face with joy.
– G.V. Wigram
Conscience | Joy
If we are saved by grace alone, this salvation is a constant source of amazed delight. Nothing is mundane or matter-of-fact about our lives. It is a miracle we are Christians, and the Gospel, which creates bold humility, should give us a far deeper sense of humor and joy. We don’t take ourselves seriously, and we are full of hope for the world.
– Tim Keller
Grace | Hope | Humorjoy
As the saints of God meet together Jesus still manifests Himself. And seeing Him, there comes to us a new joy and peace, a new sense of the purpose and worthfulness of life. Seeing Him there comes to us a new power for battle and for conquest.
– Clovis G. Chappell
Joy | Peace | Power
It matters little what form of prayer we adopt or how many words we use. What matters is the faith which lays hold on God, knowing that He knows our needs before we even ask Him. That is what gives Christian prayer its boundless confidence and its joyous certainty.
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Prayer | Faith | Joy
The essence of loving living as a follower of Jesus isn’t in trying harder but in enjoying more. I’m not saying you can change without trying. I’m saying that enjoyment empowers effort. Pleasure in God is the power for purity.
– Sam Storms
Joy
Do not let the empty cup be your first teacher of the blessings you had when it was full. Do not let a bard place here and there in the bed destroy your rest. Seek, as a plain duty, to cultivate a buoyant, joyous sense of the crowded kindnesses of God in your daily life.
– Alexander MacLaren
Joy
We are to be re-made. All the rabbit in us is to disappear-and then, surprisingly, we shall find underneath it all a thing we have never yet imagined: a real Man, an ageless god, a son of God, strong, radiant, wise, beautiful, and drenched in joy.
– C.S. Lewis
Conversion | Beauty | Joy
He that hath so many and great causes of joy, and yet is in love with sorrow and peevishness, deserves to starve in the midst of plenty, and to want comfort, while he is encircled with blessings.
– Jeremy Taylor
Blessings | Comfort | Joy
He who searches for Divine Reality with all his heart and soul and finds it, becomes aware that, before he began to seek God, God was seeking him, in order to draw him into the joy of fellowship with Him, into the peace of His Presence.
– Sadhu Sundar Singh
Joy | Peace
In this world, full often, our joys are only the tender shadows which our sorrows cast.
– Henry Ward Beecher
Suffering | Joy
Sometimes the joy which floods the soul overflows into the spirit, inducing the believer to think he is the happiest person in the world; at other times sorrow pervades and he becomes the most unhappy person. A soulish Christian frequently encounters such experiences.
– Watchman Nee
Happiness | Joy
We need to discover all over again that worship is natural to the Christian, as it was to the godly Israelites who wrote the psalms, and that the habit of celebrating the greatness and graciousness of God yields an endless flow of thankfulness, joy, and zeal.
– J.I. Packer
Worship | Joy | Thankfulness