Many claim to hold the keys to greater happiness. Gurus and religionists are chief in this group. However, the lives led by these people and their followers cast serious doubts on their claims. This deficiency must be due either to their failure to practice what is taught, or the inefficacy of the teachings themselves. In many cases, there is nothing wrong with the content of the teaching, but there is a lack of understanding of how to use it properly.
Such it is with the gospel of Jesus Christ. The purpose of the gospel of Jesus Christ is to lift your understanding and character to the point where you can encounter the greatest possible joy given even the harshest realities of this world.
There are many religious people, and they certainly do not hold a monopoly on happiness. There are many aspects of the gospel of Jesus Christ that are unused or unknown to most who profess to be Christian. All of these aspects are explained in scripture, and many of them are highlighted in this book.
The failure of so many Christians to obtain what Christianity promises is not a failure of the teachings themselves, but of the people who profess to be Christian. Owning a set of paintbrushes does not make someone a master painter. There really is no value in religion except inasmuch as it benefits above and beyond that held by those without religion who are able to live the same lives.
For most people, attempting to be a good person as long as it doesn’t cost too much is all there is to life. Like ships without rudders on the sea, when things are good, they are good; when things are bad, they are bad. This is not the path to untouchable joy.
We are created to have joy:
And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it. (Mosiah 2:41)
Though we are created to have joy, it is not automatic. By nature, humans are miserable creatures:
For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father. (Mosiah 3:19)
The difference between one in the circumstances of complete fulfillment and one in less than this is only a matter of their possession of and application of the tools necessary to obtain it. The difference between the default state and one of joy lies in obtaining and living the tools provided by the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The more of the gospel you obtain—the more accurate your understanding of it, and the more fully you live it—the greater your happiness will be.
How will you know if this assertion is true? Jesus said:
If any man desires to do His will (God’s pleasure), he will know (have the needed illumination to recognize, and can tell for himself) whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking from Myself and of My own accord and on My own authority. (John 7:17, AMP)
The Lord Jesus Christ taught everything one needs to overcome all darkness in this world. Through what he taught, it is possible for anyone to be completely happy, content, and fulfilled all the time. It is possible for anyone to get to the point where nothing that could ever happen in this life could affect their joy.