Joy To The World
Your happiness maybe predicated by your surroundings or what you may currently be going through BUT Joy comes from God and will never change!
~ Dr. Wanda Hudson
Hello there!
Let’s go to God in Prayer:
Lord thank you for yet another opportunity to be on Spiritual Situations and to share the Word that comes from you. Anointed these listener ears to hear and open their hearts to receive exactly what they need from you. Let their minds be the fertile ground in which your word is planted. In Jesus’s name we pray AMEN!
As we come upon this Christmas season we may hear a lot of songs being played or choirs and carolers singing. When you listen you will notice that one of the songs that will play for the next 15-20 days will be Joy to the Word. My favorite version of the song is when Whitney Houston sang it on the Preacher’s Wife and since I don’t sound anything like Whitney, even on by best days, I’m going to allow you to hear her. I apologize up front that I won’t be playing the entire song because she really is great (I say is and not was because I guarantee you that she is in heaven still singing solos and leading her own mass choir) but I want you to listen to the main points of the song: (play up to 2:50)
You know how when I’m sharing scripture with you I share from more than one version; usually the King James Version and either the New Living Translation or the Message Versions, well I believe that was the message version. She says:
Joy to the World the Lord has come let earth receive her king. Let every heart prepare him room and let heaven and nature sing
Go tell of his story – shout of his glory; that the Savior is born and let heaven and nature sing.
Joy to the World the Lord has come let earth receive her king. Let fields and flocks, rock hills and plains repeat the sounding you.
Joy to the world for the Savior reigns and makes his blessings flow. Joyful all ye nations rise. Join the triumph of the skies. With angelic hosts proclaim, “Glory to the King,” while the angels sing!
Joy Joy Joy Joy Joy Joy Joy Joy…Peace…Love…Joy!
We have been singing this song for years, some more years than others, but for decades nonetheless, and usually only during the Christmas season! But in all actuality we can see this song everyday 365 24/7 because it is praising the second coming of our Lord and Savior.
Another interpretation of verse 3 says:
“No more let sins and sorrow grow, nor thorns infect the ground. He has come to make his blessings flow.”
Written in 1719, Isaac Watts wrote this song as a Christian interpretation of Psalm 98 but with the Second Coming in mind.
In Psalm 98 verses 1-2 it states:
Oh, sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous deeds! His right hand and His holy arm have accomplished deliverance. The Lord has made known His salvation; His righteousness He has revealed in the sight of the nations.
Verses 7-9: Let the sea roar, and all that fills it, the world and those who live in it; let the rivers clap their hands; let the hills be joyful together before the Lord, for He is coming to judge the earth. With righteousness He will judge the world, and the peoples with justice.
Sound familiar?
But what does it mean to have Joy?
Do you know there is a difference from being happy and having JOY?
Your happiness maybe predicated by your surroundings or what you may currently be going through BUT Joy comes from God and will never change!
You all know me by now and should know what’s coming next:
Yep – let’s check with Mr. Webster for a definition.
Happy is defined as feeling or showing pleasure or contentment or having a sense of confidence in or satisfaction with a person, place, arrangement or situation.
But what happens when you are no longer feeling or being content? What happens when you are no longer satisfied with an arrangement, you no longer have confidence with your situation, or that person that you love no longer is acting accordingly (children acting up in school, spouse making a mess and not cleaning after their self, parents continuously on your back (probably rightfully so) but on you anyways? What happens to your happiness (your status of being happy)? It’s gone because it’s based on your present conditions.
But as I said JOY comes from God!
When talking about joy in the biblical sense it is much more than happiness because it is an everlasting emotion that comes from choosing to trust that God will fulfill his promises in your life. Joy is an attitude that we, as Christians (God’s people) take on to lead our lives. We find joy not because of the happy circumstances we find ourselves in nor because of the status of our current situation. We find joy because of our faith in God’s love and his promises for us. Last week I asked you to start looking up the things God promised to us in his word so that you can start applying them in 2024. Have you started? Are you ready? It’s never too late to start so that 2024 is your most joyous year yet because you now know what Joy (God’s unspeakable joy) is really based on.
It is your choice to rejoice:
Choosing joy has nothing to do with how we feel and everything to do with how we obey God’s word. It can persist in the harshest of situations because it depends on God and his promises not in our circumstances. It is a response to the goodness of God and our eternal salvation.
In 1st Thessalonians 5:16-18 Paul is talking to the Church when he tells them:
See that no one pays back evil for evil, but always try to do good to each other and to all people. Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.
When I was in the Nursing Home Ministry at church there was this one couple Sam and Geneva Coleman and brother Sam would always say, “it’s your choice to rejoice.”
Matthew 5:11-12:
God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers. Be happy about it! Be very glad! For a great reward awaits you in heaven. And remember, the ancient prophets were persecuted in the same way
Also in 2nd Corinthians 6:8-10:
We serve God whether people honor us or despise us, whether they slander us or praise us. We arehonest, but they call us impostors. “We are ignored, even though we are well known. We live close to death, but we are still alive. We have been beaten, but we have not been killed. Our hearts ache, but we always have joy. We are poor, but we give spiritual riches to others. We own nothing, and yet we have everything.”
When you confuse being happy with having joy you will not understand the previous statement “it’s your choice to rejoice.”. What Brother Sam, Matthew 5:11-12, and 2nd Corinthians 6:8-10 are all saying it that we have a choice: we can
1) remain trusting in self and let your happiness be dictated by what you know and what is going on, or
2) you can trust God, his promises and his love for us knowing that even though you may be going through the fire or rain right now you will have victory in the end, since the word says joy comes in the morning.
Joy comes in the Morning:
Psalm 30:4-5
Sing unto the Lord, O ye saints of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness. For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.
The Message says: All you saints! Sing your hearts out to God! Thank him to his face! He gets angry once in a while, but across a lifetime there is only love. The nights of crying your eyes out give way to days of laughter.
It is hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel when we are in the midst of trials and tribulations, but if we hold on to our faith and trust what God promised in his word, we know that better days are ahead. Joy comes in the morning means no matter what darkness (the night) we face, joy (the morning) will come at the end of the tribulation. Remember that your trials have an expiration date. You can find joy in that!
Psalm 23 tells us that “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
This verse of scripture is also a reminder that no matter what we are facing in life God is with us and will see us through to the other side. No matter what we are facing in life, we can have faith because joy comes in the morning. He takes us from the night into the morning, from the darkness into the light. We may go through dark times, but eventually the sun will rise, and we will experience joy again. When we wake up each day, we have a choice to make. We can either focus on the negative or we can choose to see the joy that comes with each new day.
We go from weeping at night to joy in the morning.
I read an article a couple of years ago, buy this lady name Miranda Rejoice (how on point is that?) and she gave 5-steps on how to experience joy at all times. She included some scripture to go with each step but in my study time I added a few more. Let’s look at the steps and some scripture on how we can remain joyous in all trials and tribulations.
Step 1. Put your faith in God by putting Him first.
When a negative report or circumstance arises the FIRST thing we should do is remember God’s word and speak it over the situations.
But unfortunately, that is not what we do. We do the total opposite. First we get angry, afraid and worried about what is happening. Now that our emotions have taken over we have to go tell somebody. We want an amen from the Amen corner; someone to come into agreement with us that we are being treated unfairly and unjustly.
We forget in 1st Peter 5:7 we are told by Paul to cast all your cares [all your anxieties, all your worries, and all your concerns, once and for all] on Him, for He cares about you [with deepest affection, and watches over you very carefully].
Or 1st Thessalonians 2:4 where it says, As we live to please God, He promises to bless our lives and make us prosper. When you decide to serve God with your whole heart and make Him first in your life, your soul will prosper, and your joy and peace will increase.
To truly put God first we need to truly submit to Him and His Word over what the world has to say about it. Seek God's kingdom over your own.
Matthew 6:31-34: “So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. 33 Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.
Step 2 and we already touched on this one a little, Choose Joy.
The Lord instructs us to view our trials as pure joy
James 1:2-3 states, Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance; the confidence in or tense expectation of the power or the faithfulness of God, who delivers his people.
In Psalm 43:5 David is going through a whole lot of negative emotions when he asks himself, “Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad?” You see in this chapter David is being oppressed and slandered by his enemies and wonders why God hasn’t come to his rescue yet. But even in all that he still chose to have joy when he said, “I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again — my Savior and my God!” Joy is a choice and like David we choose to rejoice.
Step 3: Strive to rewire your brain to see joy first.
At this step Ms. Rejoiced gave us a challenge: She said when a negative thought enter your mind immediately replace it with one or two positive thoughts and watch how your attitude changes.
Interesting story: My mom was one who could lean towards the negative until one day she was getting her hair done, just a talking, and her stylist said, “Ms. Barb you done said three things negative now try saying one thing positive.” Boy was she mad! When she called to tell me about it late that day or maybe the next she was still hot. But gradually the more she thought about it the more she intentionally did it the happier she actually became. You could see the change in her. I believe that was the turning point in her life that allowed her to be at peace when she passed. The choice to not let the negative become more powerful than the joy!
Proverbs 4:23 Be careful what you think, because your thoughts run your life”
The next time you're fighting negative thoughts remember you have the mind of Christ. Take each negative thought captive and replace it with what Paul says in Philippians 4:8. Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy — meditate on these things."
This scripture promises that when we align our thoughts with God's, His peace, which passes all understanding, will keep our hearts and mind through Christ Jesus.
If you are someone who has a lot of negative thoughts, or if your first thought usually runs towards the negative I challenge you to practice this. If it doesn’t work for you what did you lose? But when it does – Joy unspeakable Joy will be yours.
Step 4: Remember the Word of God.
God said to Joshua (Joshua 1:8-9) Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do. This is my command—be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.
Knowing what the word says brings me JOY.
I know when the world says I am weak I remember that the JOY of the Lord is my strength. (Nehemiah 8:10)
I know when I’m attacked I have JOY remembering that He is working all things out for my good (Romans 8:2), by His stripes I am healed (Isiah 53.5) and if God be for me who can be against me (Romans 8:31)
In closing we are going to take the opportunity to let 5th Step Asking God’s help to experience Joy in all circumstances be our final praye
Father God thank you for those who are listening to Spiritual Situations, Words of Inspiration. I pray that you will help us as we seek you and resolve to chose joy through all situations and circumstances. I pray that you help us remember that you are greater than any trial or tribulation that comes against us. I ask that you show us your peace and your joy in any and all situations. Thank you for all that you are doing in our lives. Thank you for all that you have done. And thank you for all that you will do. We choose JOY! In Jesus’ Name Amen
Merry Christmas!