Saturday, July 22, 2006

The Joy Of The Lord

There is a great difference between JOY and HAPPINESS. Joy is the realm of the spirit whereas happiness is related to our emotions, feelings and circumstances. When things are going well, we have happiness. It is good to have happiness, but we cannot have it all the time.

To illustrate: If I lost my wallet, I would be very happy when the founder returned it to me. After a few days, I would no longer have the feeling of happiness although my wallet is still with me. What I have actually lost is the feeling of happiness at the time of finding it.

Joy on the other hand, is not dependent on feelings or circumstances. There is only one source of Joy and that is God - God Himself! That is why it is possible to "rejoice in the Lord always!" In Philippians 4:4-7, Paul actually commands the Philippians to "rejoice in the Lord always!" (verse 4) and they are able to do so because "the Lord is near" (verse 5). You will note that while submitting their petitions and prayers, they are also encouraged to include the spirit of thanksgiving. (verse 6) And the resultance is having "the peace of God" (verse 7) in midst of whatever circumstances.

Therefore, when our circumstances cause us nothing but grief, fear, doubt, anger ... we can still rejoice because our joy is not based on fluctuating circumstances, but has it's source in the One Who loves us and is the object of our love. Beloved, if we but exercise our faith and choose to "rejoice in the Lord", in the midst of our adverse circumstances, these negative feelings of grief, fear, doubt and anger will just melt away because we now have the Peace of God.

Therefore, we can "count it all joy even when we fall into divers trials or testings" (James 1:2) because it is "The Joy of the Lord" which is our strength (Nehemiah 8:10) that will carry us through.

copyright (c) TPWC

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