{"id":830,"date":"2024-09-17T15:55:19","date_gmt":"2024-09-17T15:55:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goodspringsfgc.org\/?p=830"},"modified":"2024-09-17T16:02:22","modified_gmt":"2024-09-17T16:02:22","slug":"rediscovering-your-joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goodspringsfgc.org\/?p=830","title":{"rendered":"Rediscovering Your Joy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For many\nChristians serving God is a duty when it should be a delight. Billy Sunday\nsaid, \u201cIf you have no joy, there\u2019s a leak in your Christianity somewhere.\u201d\nIndeed, Christians should be the happiest people on the planet. A happy\nChristian is a strong Christian because \u201cThe\njoy of the Lord<\/strong> is your strength\u201d<\/em> (Neh. 8:10). As C. S. Lewis\nstated, \u201cJoy is the serious business of heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately,\nthe Bible is perceived by some as a boring book of gloom and doom, rules and\nregulations, and super serious theological issues. Consequently, God is viewed\nas a killjoy, a cosmic cop in heaven, who doesn\u2019t want people to have any fun.\nAfter all, God is somber, strictly business, and serving Him is drudgery,\nright? Wrong! That, my friend, is not an accurate portrayal of the Bible or the\nGod who inspired it. The great revivalist John Wesley said, \u201cSour godliness is\nthe devil\u2019s religion . . . it originated among unhappy, semi-religious people\nwho had just enough religion to make themselves miserable but not enough to do\nthem any good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God is the\nsource of true joy. We can\u2019t have complete joy apart from Him. \u201cIn Your presence is fullness of joy<\/strong>; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore\u201d<\/em> (Ps. 16:11). There is temporary\n\u201cfun\u201d in sin, or no one would commit it, but it is short-lived, and the\nconsequences take a terrible toll. You don\u2019t have to drink alcohol, do drugs,\ngamble, or engage in illicit sex in order to have \u201cfun.\u201d It might surprise you\nhow many joy-related words are found in the Bible. Words like \u201chappy, glad,\ngladness, joy, joyful, joyfully, joyous, rejoice, rejoiced, rejoicing, cheer,\ncheerful, cheerfully, laugh, laughed\u201d occur nearly 700 times combined in\nScripture. Whoever said being a Christian is no fun is reading the wrong Bible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God must have a\nsense of humor because He started the nation of Israel with a 100-year-old\nimpotent man (Abraham) and a 90-year-old barren woman (Sarah). Isaac\u2019s means\n\u201claughter.\u201d God promised them a son twenty-five years earlier, but He waited\nuntil it was no longer humanly possible for them to conceive. Then God did the\nimpossible, gave them Isaac, and restored joy and laughter to their lives.\nProverbs 17:22 reminds us that \u201cA merry\nheart does good, like medicine.\u201d<\/em> Just thinking about how funny Abraham\u2019s\nstory is should give you a good dose. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most Christians\ncan quote Nehemiah 8:10\u2014\u201cThe joy of the Lord is your strength\u201d<\/em>\u2014but few know its historical context.\nThe Israelites were a defeated, dejected, discouraged people. They had just\nreturned to their homeland after 70 years of Babylonian captivity eager to\nrebuild Jerusalem. Ezra, the Scribe, read the Law of Moses \u201cfrom the morning until midday\u201d (and\nyou thought your preacher is long-winded). Many of these former captives had\nnever heard the law. When they realized how far they had fallen from God\u2019s\nstandards, they began to weep in utter despair. Ezra and Nehemiah calmed them\ndown and told them not to weep but to rejoice. You see, wallowing in the misery\nof the past doesn\u2019t help or change it. Instead, we should rejoice that God has\ngiven us a new beginning and focus on a brighter future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Psalmist\nDavid enjoyed his walk with God as much or more than any other Bible character,\nbut he temporarily lost his joy due to compromise. When he repented for his\nadultery with Bathsheba, David prayed, \u201cRestore\nunto me the<\/strong> joy of my salvation<\/strong>\u201d<\/em>\n(Ps. 51:12). Condemnation lifted and his joy returned. Later, he wrote, \u201cI was glad<\/strong>\nwhen they said to me, let us go into the house of the Lord\u201d<\/em> (Ps. 122:1).\nThen he urged his readers to \u201cServe the\nlord with gladness<\/strong>\u201d<\/em> (Ps. 100:2).\nServing God should be our delight, not merely our duty! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As believers, we\ndon\u2019t have<\/em> to go to church, read the\nBible, pray, give offerings or witness\u2014we get<\/em>\nto! It\u2019s a privilege to serve God. Joy is one of the surest signs of the\npresence of God. Joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:22), and is evidence\nof a Spirit-filled life (Rom. 14:17). One author noted, \u201cJoy is the flag that\nflies over the castle of the heart telling us that the King is in residence.\u201d\nWhen the King of England stays at Buckingham Palace, the British flag flies\nproudly to signify his presence. If the King of Kings is living in our hearts,\njoy should be a main indicator of His presence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

True joy doesn\u2019t\nresult from things or circumstances. Joy is not the absence of problems, but\nthe presence of Christ. Jesus never promised trouble-free living. In fact, He\npredicted the opposite, \u201cIn the world you\nwill have tribulation; but be of good\ncheer<\/strong>, I have overcome the world\u201d<\/em> (Jn. 16:33). To quote C. S. Lewis\nagain, \u201cDon\u2019t let your happiness depend on something you may lose.\u201d New\npossessions may bring a temporary sense of happiness, but alas the newness\nwears off, the payments arrive, and buyer\u2019s remorse sets in. Lasting joy is not\ntied to material things but to a vibrant relationship with the One who is our\nsource of joy! So, take time to rediscover your joy, and learn to \u201cEnjoy the\njourney while you\u2019re getting where you\u2019re going?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For many Christians serving God is a duty when it should be a delight. Billy Sunday said, \u201cIf you have no joy, there\u2019s a leak in your Christianity somewhere.\u201d Indeed, Christians should be the happiest people on the planet. A happy Christian is a strong Christian because \u201cThe joy of the Lord is your strength\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":833,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodspringsfgc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodspringsfgc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodspringsfgc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodspringsfgc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodspringsfgc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=830"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodspringsfgc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":831,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodspringsfgc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830\/revisions\/831"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodspringsfgc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodspringsfgc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodspringsfgc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodspringsfgc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}