’The Stoic bears, the Epicurean seeks to enjoy, the Buddhist and Hindu stand apart disillusioned, the Muslim submits, but only the Christian exults.’ (E. Stanley Jones)

’The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows; but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams, but God is the ocean.’ (Jonathan Edwards, Works, II, 244)

’Religion does not banish all joy. As there is seriousness without sourness, so there is a cheerful liveliness without lightness. When the prodigal was converted, “they began to make merry”…Who should be cheerful, if not the people of God? They are no sooner born of the Spirit, but they are heirs to a crown.’ (Thomas Watson)

’When [the Holy Spirit] so sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts, and so fills them with gladness by an immediate act and operation (as he caused John Baptist to leap for joy in the womb upon the approach of the mother of Jesus), – then doth the soul, even from hence, raise itself to a consideration of the love of God, whence joy and rejoicing doth also flow. Of this joy there is no account to be given, but that the Spirit worketh it when and how he will. He secretly infuseth and distils it into the soul, prevailing against all fears and sorrows, filling it with gladness, exultations; and sometimes with unspeakable raptures of mind.’ (John Owen, Works, II 253)

Take a saint, and put him in any condition, and he knows how to rejoice in the Lord.  (Walter Cradock)

Joys are our wings; sorrows are our spurs.  (Anon)

Here, joy begins to enter into us; there, we enter into joy.  (Thomas Watson)

Why should Christians be such a happy people?  It is good for our God, it gives him honour among men when we are glad.  It is good for us, it makes us strong.  “The joy of the Lord is your strength” (Neh 8:10).  It is good for the ungodly, when they see Christians glad, they long to be believers themselves.  It is good for our fellow Christians, it comforts them and tends to cheers them.  (Spurgeon)