JOY

Joy. It is one of the greatest thing that our world desires. Joy is deeper than happiness and more enduring than pleasure. These are fleeting while joy is abiding.

What is joy? How do we find it? Here are 7 simple ways the Bible guarantees you will find joy and keep it:

1. Receive God’s Grace
​To be blunt, the reason we don’t have joy is because as sinners we’re under God’s wrath and lost in the darkness of sin.

Joy comes when we turn from sin and trust in Jesus’s death and resurrection for forgiveness and new life. It is when our heart’s “prepare Him room,” as the carol says, that we will discover this heavenly blessing of true joy–approval by God. In the New Testament “joy” literally means ‘grace realized.’ It is coming to experience God’s unmerited favour as a sinner through faith in Jesus. It is a gift given by the Holy Spirit and so is something that cannot be fabricated (Gal 5:22).
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Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. (John 16:24)

2. Remember to Worship
​When we focus on self (pride) our lives want joy. Joy comes from depending on God, putting Him and others first. The highest act of humility is worship. When we praise God for how great He is our gaze is lifted from self to heaven, from darkness to light. Such joy is magnified when we join others in the command of public worship. Music is also good medicine to a weary soul.

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the LORD!” (Psalm 122:1)

3. Don’t Walk Alone
Christianity is personal but not private; Christians are part of the body and meant to support each other. How lonely it is to live for and by oneself. How depressing it is to have no one to encourage you. By design, God gave us the Church—His representative family on earth—in part at least, so our joy might be full. When we are active members of the Church we’ll have many brothers and sisters to share life with us.

Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. (Romans 12:15)

4. Walk in Obedience
When we disobey the King we can only expect to live in guilt and shame and fear. However, when we obey Him, when we do good, it will be our joy. There is blessing in knowing we’re doing right, that we’re walking the way the King desires, the way we were created to live.

10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. (John 15:10-11, cf. 1 John 5:3;  Ps 119:2).

5. Enjoy the Small Things
Life can become monotonous, even hard at times. However, rather than despair the Lord commands us to take advantage of the small things in life: that sunset, a good meal, birds at the feeder, time with family, a job well done. Let’s not forget to count our small blessings and enjoy them one by one. The Lord uses these things to bring us joy.

And I commend joy, for man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 8:15, c.f. 2:24)

6. Be Content
It is easy to slip into the prideful thought that we deserve X lot in life or that God’s providence in any given situation isn’t best for us. Contentment frees us from self-pity to find joy in every situation.

Whatever my lot, thou has taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul. (Hymn “It is Well”)

7. Hope In the Future This world is a dark place and we experience the effects of sin. Even as we do all of the above in faith, we can lose hope and without hope there is no joy. However, the believer has been promised a day free from the presence of sin when Jesus returns. This hope breathes joy into our darkness.
According to His promise we are expecting new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells. (2 Peter 3:13)

So may your joy be complete by realizing His grace and walking in it.