Is God Happy?

1. Is God happy?

 

Great question! Here are some thoughts on this:

 

Yes!

 

A. Matthew 25:23 NIV: “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’”

 

In this passage Jesus invites the faithful servant to share Jesus’ happiness! Jesus is always happy because He doesn’t have any sin in Him; He is perfectly connected to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit; He completed the task God the Father had given Him (living a perfect life and dying on the cross): obedience to God always, in the long-run, leads to happiness just like sin always, in the long-run, leads to pain, frustration, etc.

 

B. Ecclesiastes 2:26 NIV: “To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness…”

 

Someone can only give to (share with) someone else something they already have. In the verse above we see that God gives happiness to humans…so that must mean He has it Himself! (just think of times when you are very crabby/cranky; it’s much harder to be kind to people/respect your parents when we are cranky. But think about the times that you are overjoyed with happiness; even if someone is rude to you it doesn’t really bother you and you generally will treat them with respect back even though they don’t deserve it.)

 

C. Galatians 5:22 NIV: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

 

The fruit of the Spirit above is literally a description of the character/personality of God (the Spirit). God has and IS all of those qualities ALL THE TIME! SO COOL! And He wants to share those qualities with us so that we can be that way too. Being loving, joyful, peaceful, kind, etc. makes life so wonderful; having those things is so much better than having sin, even though sin can sometimes be more “fun” initially, it always turns sour eventually (like eating an entire gallon of ice cream tastes good at first, but eventually you get nauseous, sick, and throw it up).

 

D. Genesis 6:5-6 NIV: “The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.”

 

But God does feel pain, grief, sadness, and anger as well–God is a person and can feel all the same feelings we can (except sinful ones like unholy anger, envy, etc.). It hurts God when we sin, ignore Him, hurt ourselves and others, don’t share, gossip, etc. All of those sins hurt God personally because of how much God loves us.

 

Interestingly enough, though, God reveals that in heaven His people will no longer feel any more pain, sadness, grief, etc. and that He Personally will wipe away every tear from our eyes (Isaiah 25:8; Revelation 21:4). Our pain will end forever in heaven; perhaps God’s pain over the sins of humanity will end as well! Perhaps He is even more excited about heaven than we are…

 

Your second question was:

 

2. “Did God know when He made earth and Adam and Eve that they would betray Him and have to be separated from Him? Or did He not know and hoppe we would stay pure and “blind”?? Thanks!”

 

Here are some thoughts on this:

 

Yes, God knew Adam and Eve would sin. Before God even made humans, He knew that making them would cause Him some pain (but He made us anyway because He wanted to share Himself and His amazingness with us–isn’t that awesome!?).

 

E. Romans 11:2 NIV: “God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew.” 

 

F. Psalm 139:4,16 NIV: “Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely…Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

 

God knew us before we were even born. knew everything we would say, think, do, etc. But the pain that we would cause Him by us sinning was worth it because of the joy it would bring us to know, love, and serve Jesus. We are worth the pain to God!

 

I hope that is helpful, my friend–thanks so much for asking these questions and please keep on sharing them with me!!!