J.O.Y.

Are you struggling to find JOY?
Do you feel like you even know what JOY is?
Do you struggle to explain to your children what JOY is? 

Well, it is my prayer and hope that this short little post will encourage and equip you to experience and explain what true JOY is.

First of all, JOY and happiness are not the same thing.
Happiness is based on what happens to us. Happiness is temporary and fleeting.
Joy is based on something (actually Someone) that (actually Who) is eternal and unending.

True, everlasting, unending, eternal JOY comes from the Lord.

JOY comes from His presence (Psalm 16:11).
JOY comes from the hope only He can give (Romans 15:13).
The JOY of the Lord is our strength (Nehemiah 8:10).
The enemy comes only to steal, kill, and destroy our joy,
but Jesus came to give us life to the fullest (John 10:10).
The JOY of the Lord helps us to endure in tribulations (Romans 12:12).
Because God is always with us, we can and should be JOYful at all times 
(1st Thessalonians 5:16).

Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice! (Philippians 4:4)

I heard a great acronym (I am a sucker for acronyms) for JOY a long time ago.

J - Jesus

 O - Others

   Y - Yourself

We've already seen that true JOY comes from having a relationship with Jesus.

Second to that comes putting Others before yourself. Jesus said that after loving God (#1), we should love others as we love ourselves (#2) (Matthew 22:37-39). Something that always stands out to me is that Jesus didn't have to tell us to love ourselves. He already knows how in love with ourselves we are. LOL! There are countless Scriptures about putting others before ourselves (perhaps that will be a future blog).