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Joy is a feeling of great pleasure and happiness.
Happiness is feeling or showing pleasure or contentment.
Joy is that feeling when you are so exited and fired up of what is about to happen or has happened.
I can remember the day I got my degree in Quantity Surveying was such a day. Seven years of hard work and studying has come to fruition.
The opposite is when I sometimes dream that I failed and never got my degree, man am I joyful when I wake up and realize it was only a dream!!!
Then there was the day I became a disciple after so many years I felt that I can serve God better with my whole heart, what a day of salvation!!!
So let’s study out what should give us joy spiritually.
1. The Bible Scriptures:
9 Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart,
and the pleasantness of a friend
springs from their heartfelt advice. – Pr 27:9
- I think this verse was written for women mainly (smile).
- If it was for guys it would probably read: “braai and the smell of a camp fire brings joy to the heart.”
- I went to a rose garden the other day for Mothers day. Then we started smelling the roses, my oh my was it awesome. I smelled a few roses in my time in my mothers rose garden but this was phenominal!!! You cannot describe in words what smells your nose pick up. While we were walking through the rose garden all of a suddenIy we smelled a drain that was pumping somewhere, what a bummer. My daughter commented: “Ahhhhh that stinks mommmmm!!!”.
- But I thought about the difference it brings to ones feelings, one is calm and serene like a women running in a lavender field and the other is like being trapped in a backward street with dumpsters all around me. Mannn!!!
- Another verse comes to mind; “to some we are the smell of death to others the fragrance of life” (2 Cor 2:15-17)
- When we share the good news with people and they do not want to change that is the smell of death they are smelling, but if they realize it come out of love from our hearts and they take heed it is truly like perfume and the fragrance of literary life.
- How do you determine if someone is really your friend, do they listen to your heartfelt advice. Are they open for input into their spiritual life?
- The question comes to mind why would someone give me heartfelt advice? Isn’t it because they really love me and see how that advice would benefit my life and free me up from the sin that keeps me captive. It is almost like seeing a friend in jail; and the longing for them to be free.
- If you do not love heartfelt advice then I think you do not love God any more if it is coming from a Christian wanting you to have closer relationship with God.
2. Close
– John some more instances when I was extremely joyful was my dream to go work overseas, meaning England and Ireland. Aren’t we joyful when our dreams get realized, how much more God’s dreams for our lives?
– I got on that plane to leave for Ireland to go work overseas; I was so excited and looking forward to my adventure!!!
– The other time I was really excited when I was a disciple already and we went to Australia to go and play rugby against fellow disciples of Australia and New Zealand. What an awesome trip of brotherhood!!!
- I think Francois joy spiritually is what should permeate us daily.
- If you realize that you are on your way to most epic joyfully happy party in heaven, that should fill us with joy.
- Is heaven a fairy tail for you, like going to disneyland. It is beatiful but not real?
- If heaven is real to you are you working as hard to get there as you work at your job? It will show in your times spent how real it is for you!
- Is heaven like the last resort, they treat it like a life jacket that you keep for just in case it is true?
"Find ecstacy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough!"
- Amen, Francois.
- Good morning Heavenly Father.
- Thank you for a great new day to live in joy and happiness in Your presence!
- Lord we got these two love birds, that is just so cute and cudly.
- One we got through someone rescuing it, that had been injured. We took him in to nurse him back to his health.
- Using that foul tasting stuff to put on his leg so he will not pull off his scabs healing his sores. It gets on our hands and we taste the foul stuff too, talk about hard love.
- Then there was the three week hand reared baby love bird we bought.
- After a week of us feeding the baby Lord through a syringe the other rescue love bird; which we call Blue after the Rio animation film, started to feed the youngling.
- So… in love we used that foul tasting stuff to help Blue heal his wounds.
- He used to bite us when we put the stuff on, but we knew the end result would be; that he would be healed and well again even though he bite us and we also got to taste the foul stuff.
- Lord isn’t that what You did for us? You being willing to be killed by us for our good???
- How much more Lord should we be willing to suffer to help our friends stay close to you.
- If I know that what I am sharing with them will help them, I will be willing to go through the pain of loving them.
- Help me to be strong in enduring the pain of loving my friends and family so they might stand before you one day and You might say to them; “Good and faithful servant”!
Amen
- If you would like to study the Bible and learn more, get a mentor, please feel free to contact me by whatsapp me +27 79 481 8989. Join our find your greatness meetup group. https://www.meetup.com/find-your-greatness/
4. References
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