I was convicted by this in my reading today. What a blessing it is to serve a God of such abundant riches and gifts. How could we not walk joyfully every day?
We glorify God by walking cheerfully. It is a glory to God, when the world sees a Christian hath that within him that can make him cheerful in the worst times; he can, with the nightingale, sing with a thorn at his breast. The people of God hath ground of cheerfulness; they are justified, and instated into adoption; and this creates inward peace; it makes music within, whatever storms are without, 2 Cor. 1:4; 1 Thes. 1:6. If we consider what Christ hath wrought for us by his blood, and wrought in us by his Spirit, it is a ground of great cheerfulness, and this cheerfulness glorifies God. It reflects upon a master when the servant is always drooping and sad, sure he is kept to hard commons, his master doth not give him what is fitting: so, when God’s people hang their heads, it looks as if they did not serve a good master, or repented of their choice; this reflects dishonour on God. As the gross sins of the wicked bring a scandal on the gospel, so do the uncheerful lives of the godly, Ps. 100:2., "Serve the Lord with gladness." Your serving him doth not glorify him, unless it be with gladness. A Christian’s cheerful looks glorify God; religion doth not take away our joy, but refine and clarify it; it doth not break our viol, but tunes it, and makes the music sweeter.
—Thomas Watson, The Select Works of the Rev. Thomas Watson, Comprising His Celebrated Body of Divinity, in a Series of Lectures on the Shorter Catechism, and Various Sermons and Treatises (New York, NY: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1855), 14.
—Thomas Watson, The Select Works of the Rev. Thomas Watson, Comprising His Celebrated Body of Divinity, in a Series of Lectures on the Shorter Catechism, and Various Sermons and Treatises (New York, NY: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1855), 14.