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To Find True Happiness, Obey God, July 20
This is my happy way of life: obeying your commandments.
Psalm 119:56
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NLT.
Happiness must be sought in the right way, and from the right source. Some
think they may surely find happiness in a course of indulgence in sinful pleasures, or
in deceptive worldly attractions. And some sacrifice physical and moral obligations,
thinking to find happiness, and they lose both soul and body. Others will seek their
happiness in the indulgence of an unnatural appetite, and consider the indulgence of
taste more desirable than health and life. Many suffer themselves to be enchained
by sensual passions, and will sacrifice physical strength, intellect, and moral powers
to the gratification of lust. They will bring themselves to untimely graves, and in
the judgment will be charged with self-murder.
Is this ... happiness desirable which is to be found in the path of disobedience
and transgression of physical and moral law? Christ’s life points out the true source
of happiness, and how it is to be attained. His life points the direct and only path to
heaven. Let the voice of wisdom be heard. Let it mark out the path. “Her ways are
ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.”
Temptations are on every side to allure the steps of youth to their ruin. The sad
deficiency in the education of children leaves them weak and unguarded, vacillating
in character, feeble in intellect, and deficient in moral strength, so that so far from
imitating the life of Christ, the youth generally are like a reed trembling in the
wind. They have not physical constitution or moral power, because they yield to
temptations. Through sinful indulgences, they stain their purity, and their manners
are corrupted. They are impatient of restraint, and flatter themselves if they could
only have their own way they should then be very happy....
If children and youth would seek their highest earthly good, they must look
for it in the path of faithful obedience. A sound constitution, which is the greatest
earthly prize, can only be obtained by a denial of unnatural appetite. If they would
be happy indeed, they should cheerfully seek to be found at the post of duty, doing
the work which devolves upon them with fidelity, conforming their hearts and lives
to the perfect pattern.—
Youth’s Instructor, April 1872
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