SECRETS TO HAPPINESS 1

BÍ QUYẾT ĐỂ ĐƯỢC HẠNH PHÚC

Kinh thánh: Thi thiên 128: 1-6

Câu gốc: 1CÔ-RINH-TÔ 13: 11 phần B – Hãy yên ủi mình, hiệp một tâm tình, ở cho hòa thuận, thì Đức Chúa Trời sự yêu thương và sự bình an sẽ ở cùng anh em.

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SECRETS TO HAPPINESS

Bible: Psalm 128: 1-6

Main verse: 2CORINTHIANS 13: 11 part B – Be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.

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– Love is one of the most important parts of human life. Everyone wants to love and to be loved. However, there are so many people who cannot find happiness in love. Many of them have tried by changing partners, or marrying and remarrying many times, but in the end all they have is bitterness.

– Humans think they know about love. That’s why writers, musicians, and poets write about love all the time, but mostly they write about love as a physical desire, or the attraction to someone’s outward appearance. That is not love. That’s why some people change their partners constantly.

– Some are aware that it’s almost impossible to find happiness in love, and so they become priests or monks. Then, it’s funny that they try to teach and advice others about love and intimacy. It is contradictory to teach about those if they’ve never loved themselves. Where did they get the experience to teach about love and intimacy, or to have compassion for those who have troubles in their marriages?

– If we want to understand what true love is and know how to find happiness in love, we should look up to God and learn from Him, because He is Love.

1JOHN 4: 8 – He who does not love does not know God, for God is Love.

1GIĂNG 4: 8 – Ai chẳng yêu, thì không biết Đức Chúa Trời; vì Đức Chúa Trời là sự yêu thương.

1JOHN 4: 16 – And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is Love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.

1GIĂNG 4: 16 – Chúng ta đã biết và tin sự yêu thương của Đức Chúa Trời đối với chúng ta. Đức Chúa Trời tức là sự yêu thương, ai ở trong sự yêu thương, là ở trong Đức Chúa Trời, và Đức Chúa Trời ở trong người ấy.

– People always thought that they know what love is and they often show off their happiness from love for others to see. Hollywood people talk about their loves more than others and their love affairs are usually in many news articles around the world, but here is a question: How many partners did they have? How many times did they marry? How much heartbreak did they go through? That’s the proof they do not know what true love is.

– The happiness people show off publicly is usually fabricated. It’s like an act to get praise, to be proud of themselves, or to be a subject of envy. We all know that in the end however, that it is just a cover.

– If a person had found their true love and real happiness, one spouse would be enough for the rest of their lives. That’s why from the beginning God had created only one man and one woman in Eden, while in the outside world Satan tried to make many, but he failed and from that failure came the apes that walked upright (Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43) (picture).

MALACHI 2: 15 – But did He not make them one, having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one? He seeks godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth.

MA-LA-CHI 2: 15 – Vả, hơi sống của Đức Chúa Trời dầu có dư dật, chỉ làm nên một người mà thôi. Nhưng vì sao chỉ làm một người? Ấy là vì tìm một dòng dõi thánh. Vậy các ngươi khá cẩn thận trong tâm thần mình; chớ đãi cách phỉnh dối với vợ mình lấy lúc tuổi trẻ.

– One day, we will study the many meanings of this verse more closely, but all we know today that God want us to focus on just one person in our love lives. Because of that we will certainly try our best to understand, to love and to be completely united with them, both in body and in mind.

– That’s why God declares that anyone who re-marries while their spouse is still alive is committing the sin of adultery, regarding if they were divorced or not.

ROMANS 7: 3 – So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man.

RÔ-MA 7: 3 – Vậy nếu đang lúc chồng còn sống, mà vợ đi lấy người khác, thì phải bị kêu là đàn bà ngoại tình; nhưng nếu chồng chết, thì vợ được buông tha khỏi luật pháp, dầu lấy người khác cũng chẳng phải là đàn bà ngoại tình vậy.

– This particular law is applied both for men and women, because to God, they are equal to each other:

1CORINTHIANS 11: 11-12 – Nevertheless, neither is man independent of woman, nor woman independent of man, in the Lord. For as woman came from man, even so man also comes through woman; but all things are from God.

1CÔ-RINH-TÔ 11: 11-12 – Song trong Chúa thì chẳng phải đàn bà ngoại đàn ông, cũng chẳng phải đàn ông ngoại đàn bà; vì, như đàn bà đã ra từ đàn ông, thì đàn ông cũng sanh bởi đàn bà, và cả thảy đều ra bởi Đức Chúa Trời.

– Now we know that we should have only one spouse for life, then, one of the secrets to have happiness in our marriages is to have common interests, or common goals.

– This secret did not come from human experiences, but from God. To understand this secret, let look at it this way: One of God’s interests is wanting humans to be saved and receiving eternal life, as it was recorded in the Bible:

1TIMOTHY 2: 4 – Who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

1TI-MÔ-THÊ 2: 4 – Ngài muốn cho mọi người được cứu rỗi và hiểu biết lẽ thật.

– With that interest in mind, Jesus came to the world to save mankind with His death on the cross. The Bible calls the community of true Christians His bride to implicate that the true happiness of marriage comes from having common interests between husbands and wives.

– Therefore, any person who has the same interest as God’s will be happy, disregarding of any awful circumstances that have happened in his life, as in the case of Paul. We know that the Apostle Paul had suffered many terrible persecutions after he believed in God, but his last words were proclaimed by a happy heart in a happy man:

2TIMOTHY 4: 6-8 – For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.

2TI-MÔ-THÊ 4: 6-8 – Về phần ta, ta đang bị đổ ra làm lễ quán, kỳ qua đời của ta gần rồi. Ta đã đánh trận tốt lành, đã xong sự chạy, đã giữ được đức tin. Hiện nay mão triều thiên của sự công bình đã để dành cho ta; Chúa là quan án công bình, sẽ ban mão ấy cho ta trong ngày đó, không những cho ta mà thôi, những cũng cho mọi kẻ yêu mến sự hiện đến của Ngài.

– So, we can see that Christians who has the same interest like God’s, wanting themselves to be saved in heaven, are happy ones. They are always happy trying to live up to the standards that were recorded in the Bible. Such Christians always try to be guided by the Holy Spirit, and have His characteristics in their lives:

GALATIANS 5: 22 – But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

GA-LA-TI 5: 22 – Nhưng trái của Thánh Linh, ấy là lòng yêu thương, sự vui mừng, bình an, nhịn nhục, nhân từ, hiền lành, trung tín, mềm mại, tiết độ.

– Those who don’t have the same interest as the Lord’s are often complaining of the high standards that they should follow in order to be children of God.

2PETER 1: 4 – By which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

2PHI-E-RƠ 1: 4 – Bởi vinh hiển nhân đức ấy, Ngài lại ban lời hứa rất quí rất lớn cho chúng ta, hầu cho nhờ đó anh em được lánh khỏi sự hư nát của thế gian bởi tư dục đến, mà trở nên người dự phần bổn tánh Đức Chúa Trời.

– Therefore it’s the same in love, as the husband and wife should have common interests. Remember though that their common interests should all be good, not by human standards but by God’s. If they had bad ones, the consequences would be unhappiness, sometime even terrible, as in the case of Bonnie and Clyde, or of Ananias and his wife Sapphira in the Apostles’ time (Acts 5: 1-11) (picture)

– For those who are single, you should try your best to have common interests or common goals with your loved one before getting into marriage. That’s the sure way to have happiness in your love life. For people who have already married, it’s never too late to sit down and try to find common interests between you and your spouse. You will find the happiness that you long for.

– May God bless us in this life, especially in our love lives, to find and to have happiness always, so that we can be better witnesses for Him. May God bless us much more in this life with happiness so that in the end, when we see Him, we will thank Him for the secret that He has given us in the Bible. Amen.