Be Joyful Always

Be Joyful Always.

… I sing for joy because of what you have done.

Psalm 92:4

You know, the Lord has indeed lavished upon his children absolutely everything we need and more to be Joyful. Even in a fallen world, full of all kinds of evil, God’s goodness causes us to rise above our circumstances and be filled overflowing with Joy. Read this verse below slowly and ask God to give you full acceptance and understanding:

Be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. – 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

I have come to understand that the “Be” in this verse above is a verb. And it is a lot of work. When I find myself wondering a bit from my behavior of reading, praying and meditating on God’s goodness, JOY is the first thing to go. And this is because there is plenty of things in this world that can suck the life and the joy out of you. You literally have to be heavenly minded and overflowing with God’s presence to walk in joy amidst the many troubles we face daily. – BUT – We were indeed called to do this. It is Christ’s love; his compassion and Joy pouring out of us that cause others to clearly see that something is radically different about us. Good soil; A heart that is searching for more, will seldom come to Jesus from the words of others. No, it is the extremely attractive attributes of Jesus manifested in our hearts and lives that have the power to draw others to Him.

You know, the practice of being joyful is not difficult. It is not faking what you don’t truly feel. It is as simple as spending time with God. We do that by meditating on verses like the ones above. We do that by talking and listening to God and really grabbing hold of His goodness in our lives. We do that by serving – by putting the love and compassion of Jesus that is in us into practice in almost any way that we can. It really is not about how many verses we read or how long we pray. It is simply surrendering our heart to God and giving ourselves to the spirit of God in us. And then Joy will be just one of many invaluable results of our satisfaction in Jesus!

Now I am a super busy guy. I have a wife, 5 kids, a cat and dog; I have a job that requires a ton of travel plus a ministry and a calling for discipleship. There is never enough time for anything, the least of which is praying and reading my bible. But I when the Joy of the Lord is in me, it causes me to capitalize on the time I do have. It causes me to worship in the shower and pray in the car. I often times can’t wait to get in my truck on a long trip and pop in sermon podcasts and worship music; or listen to the audio bible or testimony of thousands of people that are experiencing God in powerful ways. My prayers in the morning are often quick and my bible reading is never as much as I like. I have presence-minded habits of surrendering my life to God every morning and giving the Holy Spirit free rein in each day. Sometimes they are quick prayers and reading and other times I get the time I crave with the Lord. My main point here is that I am just like you! I really just want to encourage you to draw a line in the sand TODAY and create very good habits. Be determined to never walk out your door without surrendering your life to God; grabbing a verse to meditate upon and putting steps into your day to help you remember you were bought with a steep price on the cross so you gladly and willing fully surrender your will to Jesus – 100X every day if that is what is required. Practice being Holy Spirit presence minded and meditate on what God has done for you. Resolve right now to be willing to be a fool for Jesus – to say an encouraging word to someone if his spirit whispers that in your ear. Or to pray for someone if you are prompted. . . . Pretty soon. . . and perhaps even by accident, you will be walking in the overflowing Joy of Christ and you will find it to be more valuable than anything this world has to offer. This is your “promised land” . . . a devotion for another day 🙂

Check out our Vlog on Finding Joy in God’s Presence, which goes hand in hand with this blog. https://thegreatawakeningdc.blogspot.com/2023/07/Joy%20In%20Gods%20Presence.html