What is joy? What does it feel like? What gives you joy in your life? Do you even feel joy in your life? Are we so busy that we don’t even experience joy anymore?
I am blessed to experience joy in several aspects of my life. I truly experience joy when I worship and study God’s word. I treasure my personal time with God, but I also look so forward to Sundays and Wednesdays to gather with God’s people and glorify his holy name. My worship at church strengthens my personal everyday walk with God. It lifts me up, inspires me, and fills my heart with love to gather and worship with my loving church family.
Church can be a sensitive subject for some people, but for me it is a vital part of my life. I need my church and I need spirit-filled worship time. I love to sing his praises and lift him up in song. It’s a true time of joy for me. It’s a time where I can forget about that test I have coming up or the bills I still haven’t paid. Church and time of worship are essential in my life.
So many of us need joy back in our lives. In this world today, we get so sidetracked with the day in and day out routines we have made for ourselves. We live by our “penciled in” calendars and we seem to forget what and where true joy is along the way. We long for happiness. We long for acceptance. We long for love. God’s church is thankfully a place where we can fulfill these needs in our lives.
For some it is easy to think that church is no different than any other place in this world. But there is one very big difference. People don’t go to church to find fulfillment in other people. They go to church to worship and praise God, our heavenly father. Church is a place where everyone is accepted: every color, every age and every sex. Church is simply a place where imperfect people can gather together and worship a perfect Lord. Church is a place where you can truly experience the magnificent love of God. Think about it, church is the only place where members meet for the benefit of nonmembers.
Joy is something we all need to feel in our hearts. I think it is sadly something A LOT of people are missing in their lives today. My question to you is how do we find joy in our lives if we can’t even live by joy? Let me explain, what I mean is this simple little acronym for JOY. JESUS, OTHERS, YOURSELF. What if we all lived for Jesus first, others second and yourself last. Could you imagine what kind of place this world would be? It would be amazing. It would be overflowing with joy!
Psalms 5:11 says, “But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them: let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee.”
Today I simply leave you with this thought. Find that joy in your life you’ve been missing, but first simply try to live by joy and see the difference it can make. We all need God . We all need JOY!