Joy. What is joy? Many people confuse joy with happiness, but the two are absolutely different. Even the online dictionary of joy and happiness are considered one in the same. To get the definition that I am talking about, I went to http://www.biblegateway.com/resources/dictionaries/. When I looked up happiness, it was associated with the enjoyment of worldly pleasures, and joy is the exact opposite: the joy of the righteous is with God.
We cannot allow our circumstances to affect our joy. "Because joy is withered away from men." The joy of the Lord is what feeds us, it nourishes our souls. If any plant is not watered, it withers. The joy is our water, and our tree will wither before we produce any fruit if we allow ourselves to be affected by our circumstances. As a friend of mine said, "We can be joyful, without being happy."
No comments:
Post a Comment