{"id":3990,"date":"2014-09-11T06:00:59","date_gmt":"2014-09-11T13:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/devonline.us\/dailyevotional\/?p=3990"},"modified":"2014-09-10T13:35:50","modified_gmt":"2014-09-10T20:35:50","slug":"joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/joy\/","title":{"rendered":"JOY!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Isaiah 61:3<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #c40000;\"><em>A<\/em><em>nd provide for those who grieve in Zion\u2014 to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor.<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I would like to share an important secret with you: JOY IS A CHOICE! But some people seem to think that one is joyful by nature. In other words, we are born with either a ray of sunlight over our head or a thundercloud.<\/p>\n<p>It is also thought that the circumstances of life determine joy or sorrow. As we read the words of today\u2019s Scripture, we quickly notice that it is directed to those who grieve in Zion.<\/p>\n<p>Think of that! For those who are experiencing grief, the Lord promises the <span style=\"color: #c40000;\"><em>oil of joy<\/em><\/span>. Not only that, He provides a <span style=\"color: #c40000;\"><em>garment of praise<\/em><\/span> in place of a<em><span style=\"color: #c40000;\"> spirit of despair<\/span><\/em>. I think that James might have been thinking of this when he wrote: <span style=\"color: #c40000;\"><em>\u201cConsider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds\u201d <\/em><\/span>(James 1:2).<\/p>\n<p>What are you experiencing in your life at this moment? It really does not matter what the circumstances are, but it does matter whether you are appropriating the joy of the Lord in order to display His splendor.<\/p>\n<p>May God richly bless you as you bless others by your words and actions!<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8211; &#8211; &#8211; Pastor Cecil<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Isaiah 61:3 And provide for those who grieve in Zion\u2014 to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-isaiah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3990\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}