{"id":7,"date":"2007-08-01T06:00:17","date_gmt":"2007-08-01T13:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/devonline.us\/dailyevotional\/?p=7"},"modified":"2007-10-03T15:33:13","modified_gmt":"2007-10-03T22:33:13","slug":"joy-is-a-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/joy-is-a-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"“JOY IS A CHOICE!”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Luke 6:20-23<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Looking at His disciples, He said: ‘Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.\u00a0Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.\u00a0Blessed are you when men hate you, when men exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.\u00a0Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven.\u00a0For that is how their fathers treated the prophets.’ “<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From time to time I meet and greet a friend.\u00a0After the initial\u00a0hello, I often ask, “How are you doing?”\u00a0The response from some is, “Pretty good under the circumstances!”\u00a0To which I am prone to reply, “What are you doing under there?”\u00a0<\/p>\n

I am sure that you have heard that old clich\u00e9 many times.\u00a0I have used it enough that it almost feels like my own, but it was used by someone long ago, by someone more clever than I.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The sad reality is that we are all too often controlled by our circumstances.\u00a0When that is the case, we leave little room for the Lord to bring joy and delight into our life.\u00a0You heard me right: I said that the Lord wants to bring joy and delight into our life.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We often behave as if we were judges at an Olympic contest.\u00a0We hold a stack of cards from 0 to 10 on our lap. When something happens in our life, we watch, wonder, waiver, wait and finally\u00a0hold\u00a0up a score to judge if something is good or bad, and to what degree.\u00a0If it is good we have joy; if it is bad we are sad.<\/p>\n

Such actions on our parts have the effect of allowing the “things of life” to control our joy.\u00a0It is very much like the old comedy line about being under the circumstances. We have the mistaken notion that joy is the result of good things coming into our lives.\u00a0That is not what we\u00a0find in this and many other scriptures.\u00a0Yes, we do rejoice when the blessings of the Lord are poured out upon our life, but we can also have joy and rejoice even when things go wrong.<\/p>\n

That is exactly what Jesus\u00a0is teaching here in the Sermon on the Mount.\u00a0We are to be\u00a0joyful even\u00a0when we are called upon to suffer for the sake of Christ.\u00a0That is true even\u00a0when\u00a0it seems as if the whole world is against us.\u00a0If we succumb to the urge to have a pity party, we will violate the commands of our Lord, and also will miss His blessing.\u00a0The result will be bitterness and despair with no joy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unbelievers know when we are under fire for our spiritual convictions.\u00a0They will not be impressed or drawn to faith in Christ by our laments about how much\u00a0we are enduring.\u00a0No! The thing that will impress them\u00a0will be the shouts of victory and joy, that we have been counted worthy to go through times of suffering and abuse with victory!<\/p>\n

To find this joy, I think it is important for each of us to set a regular time to study the biblical aspect of joy.\u00a0Please go into the concordance in the back of your study Bible, and make a list of all of the references to the word “joy.”\u00a0Knowing more about joy will not make us joyful.\u00a0It is our obedience to the Lord that makes the joy a reality.\u00a0Since\u00a0Jesus says we are to find joy when we are being persecuted for righteousness,\u00a0that becomes\u00a0our reason for joy.<\/p>\n

I want to leave you today with a challenge.\u00a0Pray and ask the Lord to give you the strength to proclaim joy in the face of opposition, and see what happens.\u00a0I can tell you right now, that you will feel peace and contentment, even in the midst of your storm.\u00a0You will find your joy!<\/p>\n

Blessings dear hearts.\u00a0Walk with God\u00a0today, trust Him completely, and be a blessing.<\/p>\n

– –\u00a0– Pastor Cecil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Luke 6:20-23 “Looking at His disciples, He said: ‘Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.\u00a0Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.\u00a0Blessed are you when men hate you, when men exclude you and insult you and […]<\/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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-e-votionals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7","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=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}