Fruit of the Spirit: Joy

*Sigh* It's so refreshing to slip back into the world of blogging! Well, we're back on track with our posting and today (as you may have guessed) is JOY! Here's a look at how Naves Topical Bible defines joy: "emotion excited by expectation or acquisition of good; attribute of God; fruit of the Spirit; not the same as happiness which depends largely upon happenings, as it may be experianced even in affliction." Joy comes from something other than our circumstances. Joy is SO essential because it is the unmistakable mark of a Christian. When non-believers look at your life and take note of all the hardships you're going through and then see the joy overflowing in your life they are bound to want to know what makes you different. What a witness we can be!

So, now that we know we need joy...How do we get it? As mentioned above, we know our source of joy depends on something other than our circumstances. Jesus Christ. He is our source and our well-spring of life. The scriptures tell us over and over again to rejoice in the Lord, and that the joy of the Lord is our strength. "Rejoice in the Lord and be glad!" Psalms 32:11
See, when we really know Jesus Christ and draw our every breath by His sustaining grace then we can posess joy which will sustain us even through trials.
Oswald Chambers stated: "Be rightly related to God, find your joy there, and out of you will flow rivers of living water." Take time to be rightly related to God! Read his word constantly. Meditate on it day and night! Don't let anything else sneak in and steal your relationship with Him. The moment we look at things or people to fulfill our joy then we will fall into depression instead. Jesus is the only true source of everything we need.

"The full flood of my life is not in bodily health,

not in external happenings,

not in seeing God's work succeed,

but in the perfect understanding of God,

and in the communion with him that Jesus himself had.

The first thing that will hinder this joy is the captious irritation of thinking out circumstances.

The cares of this world, said Jesus, will choke God's word.

Before we know where we are,we are caught up in the shows of things.

All that God has done for us is the mere threshhold;

He wants to get us to the place where we will be His witnesses and proclaim

WHO

JESUS

IS."

(Oswald Chambers)

Be witnesses of God's joy...

:.Bug.: