Joy Is Not a Sin - Why God Wants You to Enjoy Life
Is a good Christian one who constantly does penance? The Bible says otherwise - God created the world for you to enjoy.
Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for God has already approved what you do. Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun.
- Ecc 9:7-9 (NIV)
There is a belief - deeply rooted in a certain Christian tradition - that a devout person should above all suffer. That joy is suspect. That laughter is frivolity, wine is sin, and enjoying life means you don’t take God seriously enough. For centuries, in some streams of Christianity, an image of faith as permanent mourning took shape: hair shirts, flagellations, the cult of suffering as merit. The more you suffer, the closer you are to God.
Except the Bible says something entirely different. And Christ himself lived in a way that completely shatters this image.
God created the world for you to enjoy it
Open the Bible at the first page. God creates the world and repeats one word: tov - good. Light is good. The sea is good. Plants, animals, humans - everything is good. At the end He looks at the whole of it and says: very good (Gen 1:31). God did not create the world as a waiting room full of suffering. He created it as a gift.
Paul writes to Timothy about people who “forbid marriage and order them to abstain from certain foods” - and comments on it directly:
…foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.
- 1 Tim 4:3-4 (NIV)
And to the rich in the same letter:
Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.
- 1 Tim 6:17 (NIV)
Notice: “richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” Not for enduring. Not for doing penance over. For enjoyment.
Jesus - “a glutton and a drunkard”
This is one of the most fascinating scenes in the Gospels. Jesus himself describes how people react to Him and to John the Baptist:
For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, “He has a demon.” The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.”
- Matt 11:18-19 (NIV)
John lived ascetically - in the desert, wearing camel’s hair, eating locusts and honey. And they said he had a demon. Jesus ate and drank with people - He went to feasts, sat at the table with sinners, accepted invitations - and they said He was a glutton and a drunkard. For the critics, neither option was good enough. But notice which path God chose when He came to earth: He did not choose John’s asceticism. He chose the table, community, wine.
And it is no accident that Jesus’ first miracle is not a healing, not a resurrection, not a storm calmed - it is turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana (John 2:1-11). Around 600 liters of the finest wine, when the party had already been going for days. God in the flesh, whose first supernatural act is making sure people don’t run out of wine at a celebration. If you think God is the enemy of joy - how do you explain Cana?
Thirty years of “ordinary” life
There is something else that rarely gets discussed. Jesus lived on earth for about thirty-three years. His public ministry lasted about three years. What was He doing for the other thirty?
He lived. He simply lived. He was a carpenter in Nazareth (Mark 6:3). He worked with His hands. He ate meals with His family. He went to the feasts in Jerusalem. He talked with neighbors. He slept, woke up, endured the heat, enjoyed the Sabbath rest.
Think about this. God incarnate - the One who created galaxies - spent 90% of His earthly life doing ordinary, human things. If suffering were the essence of devotion, if the “real” spiritual life consisted of unceasing pain and renunciation, then God just wasted thirty years. But of course He didn’t waste them - because ordinary life lived in closeness with the Father is also holy. Everyday life is not a break from faith. It is faith’s natural habitat.
Ecclesiastes - ancient wisdom about joy
The Book of Ecclesiastes is one of the most surprising books in the Bible. Written by someone who went through life, examined everything, and concluded that nothing under the sun lasts. And yet - or perhaps precisely because of that - it repeats one refrain:
I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil - this is the gift of God.
- Ecc 3:12-13 (NIV)
This is not hedonism. This is theology. Ecclesiastes says: enjoying life is God’s gift. Eating, drinking, work, love - these are not things to do penance for. These are things to give thanks for.
And he is not alone. The Psalmist writes:
He makes grass grow for the cattle, and plants for people to cultivate - bringing forth food from the earth: wine that gladdens human hearts, oil to make their faces shine, and bread that sustains their hearts.
- Ps 104:14-15 (NIV)
God created wine that gladdens human hearts. Not so that you would look at it with guilt.
Joy is a fruit of the Spirit
If joy were suspect, if it were a sign of spiritual weakness, then Paul certainly would not have placed it on the list of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. And yet:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
- Gal 5:22-23 (NIV)
Joy stands in second place, right after love. This is not human frivolity - it is the effect of the Holy Spirit working in a person. The closer to God, the more joy - not less.
Jesus himself said:
I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
- John 10:10 (NIV)
He did not come so that you would merely survive. He came so that you would have abundance.
The prodigal son returns - and the father throws a feast
Do you want to see how God reacts when a sinner returns to Him? You don’t have to speculate. Jesus told us directly:
But the father said to his servants, “Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” So they began to celebrate.
- Luke 15:22-24 (NIV)
No kneeling on peas. No week in sackcloth. The father does not make the son do penance for every day of recklessness. He sees him from a distance, runs, embraces him, dresses him in the finest robe, and says: let’s have a feast and celebrate. This is the image of God in the Bible. Not a stern inquisitor who makes you suffer for every mistake - but a father who rejoices at your return and wants to celebrate it.
Balance - suffering has its place
To avoid swinging to the other extreme - the Bible does not preach hedonism. There is a time for fasting (Matt 6:16-18). There is a time for weeping (Ecc 3:4). There is a time for self-denial (Luke 9:23). Suffering is part of human life, and Scripture does not hide that.
But there is a fundamental difference between what the Bible says and what a certain religious tradition taught. In the Bible, suffering is never an end in itself. Fasting is occasional, not permanent. The cross is a road toward something - toward resurrection, toward hope, toward glory (Rom 8:18). Suffering makes sense when it leads somewhere. Suffering for the sake of suffering is not piety - it is destruction.
Ecclesiastes himself put it best:
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens. (…) A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.
- Ecc 3:1,4 (NIV)
There is a time for both. But if your entire Christianity is only a time for mourning and never a time for dancing - you are missing half of what God prepared.