The joy of the Lord can carry you through the sorrows of the world, because it gives you the strength to endure. Joy comes from the Lord and joy comes from knowing the Lord. Ask for it! Thought ought to make you joyful, in fact, the most joyful person on the planet!
Many believers have gotten so bogged down with the problems of like me too! I remember Jonathan Edwards, the powerful preacher in Colonial America, was once falsely accused and driven out of the church and from behind the pulpit, but Edwards never lost his joy. He was never in danger over losing his joy for something that happened even if it was unjust, and it was.
One important fact is, if we are living in sin, we will not have the same joy Jesus spoke about. To him, it was his strength. It gave him strength to lead our music worship. It gave him strength to endure the death of his son. It gave him strength to witness to one of his co-workers. There is strength in joy. And it is contagious. When I read certain Bible passages, it makes me joyful. When we are unhappy, we think it is impossible to decide by an act of the will to change our feelings.
We tend to think of happiness as something passive, something that happens to us and over which we have no control. It is involuntary. Yes, we desire it and want to experience it, but we are convinced that we cannot create it by an act of the will. Oddly, McFerrin sounds very much like the New Testament when he commands his listeners to be happy. Over and over again in the pages of the New Testament, the idea of joy is communicated as an imperative, as an obligation.
Based on the biblical teaching, I would go so far as to say that it is the Christian's duty, his moral obligation, to be joyful. That means that the failure of a Christian to be joyful is a sin, that unhappiness and a lack of joy are, in a certain way, manifestations of the flesh.
Of course, there are times when we are filled with sorrow. Given that the Bible tells us it is perfectly legitimate to experience mourning, sorrow, and grief, these feelings are not sinful.
Well, I think we can unravel that knot fairly easily. The heart of the New Testament concept is this: a person can have biblical joy even when he is mourning, suffering, or undergoing difficult circumstances.
This is because the person's mourning is directed toward one concern, but in that same moment, he possesses a measure of joy. In his letter to the Philippians, the Apostle Paul speaks about joy and about the Christian's duty to rejoice over and over again. This is one of those biblical imperatives, and it leaves no room for not rejoicing, for Paul says Christians are to rejoice always—not sometimes, periodically, or occasionally.
Paul wrote this epistle from prison, and in it he addresses very somber matters, such as the possibility that he will be martyred, poured out as a sacrifice Yet he tells the Philippian believers that they should rejoice despite his circumstances. That brings us back to this matter of how we can be joyful as a matter of discipline or of the will. I will praise you with songs of joy.
I lie awake thinking of you, meditating on you through the night. I think how much you have helped me; I sing for joy in the shadow of your protecting wings. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete. Paul knew what it was like to swim up tide and to do so with joy. When he wrote to the Philippian church, he was chained day and night to a rotating Praetorian guard while under house arrest. Even in this limiting state, however, he wrote this wonderful Epistle of Joy.
In addition, he made it clear that even in these dire circumstances, he was still finding reasons for joy. So you too should be glad and rejoice with me Phil. Jesus came into this world not as a king, but as a servant Phil. He came to show us that the greatest joy is found when we learn how to truly serve God and people in need. The heart of a genuine servant is a joyful one. Heaven is often on the mind of the most joyful of Christians.
Even the writers of our most famous hymns usually changed gears in the last verse of their compositions from the earthly to the heavenly. If the vertical focus of heaven is our highest hope, than nothing in our horizontal experiences or relationships can keep us from the promise of it. When this world lets us down, we can be reminded of a Place that never will.
What about enjoying God? And yet God not only wants us to worship him, he wants us to enjoy him. Joy is the enjoyment of God and the good things that come from the hand of God. I know that by experience.
Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which the whole thing [i. In the final analysis, joy is a regular experience that no Christian can afford to miss.
It requires certain disciplines, but they are well worth it. Choosing joy will involve capturing moments of celebration, making music in your heart, discovering the reasons you have for joy, and sometimes telling your emotions where to get off.
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