JOY EVERYDAY

“The LORD will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me – A prayer to the God of my life” – Psalm 42:8

Our Father’s delight is that we experience and express His JOY EVERY DAY: “The LORD will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me...” (v.8a). Expressing His Joy is an invaluable habit we can invest our lives in daily, which would reap great harvests in the weeks, months, and years to come, and over our entire life’s course. The practical question is: what can I do in my busy daily schedule to find, preserve, and manifest this joy in God? It is in finding the Joy of the Lord that we are shielded from seeking for satisfaction in things of lesser value. Sustaining our joy, contentment, and fulfilment in God is absolutely essential because without it one could drift away from Christ and the Christian faith, into affections for other things.

The way God designed humankind; our hearts will not rest until they find contentment in something. Our hearts are a ‘desire factory,’ and we do not automatically find delight in the divine or satisfaction in God without a pursuit or conscious sustenance of the flame. Our flesh and the devil are active all day longing to draw us into carnal pleasures and worldly pursuits. Without a clearly defined strategy for igniting, nurturing, preserving and intensifying our Joy in God, it is easy to be drawn away by the flesh and the devil into alternative pleasures, which are, idolatry: “Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Col.3:5).  The consequence of allowing evil desires to thrive rather than killing them is an empty soul. And whatever has been driven out of such a soul will return sevenfold as terrible (Lk.11:26).

The motive for killing evil and soulish desires is not so we would have empty souls with no passions or zeal for anything. It’s that our souls may be filled to the brim with alternative desires and positive passions – desires for Christ, thirst for righteousness, hunger for holiness, longing for godliness, craving for nearness to God, and yearning for all that is pure, true, just, right, lovely and excellent. Key among such positive passions is a Passion for persistent Joy and Rejoicing in the Lord. How can this become our daily habit?

One highly profitable, but rarely exploited habit, is to preach a portion of God’s Word to yourself, intermittently throughout each day! This short message may consist of just two or three verses, but it becomes your food for spiritual nourishment during the day, and the weapon to help you fight for Joy. Squeeze every word like a grapefruit until its tastiness drops on your soul. Pull out and wield that “Sword of the Spirit” from your morning devotional reading; say it to yourself; preach it to yourself; and thank the Lord for it. Let the devil know that you believe this Blood-bought truth from the Bible. Let Satan know that this truth is more precious to you than anything he has to offer. Command your discouraged soul to be strengthened: “Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance” (vv. 5,11).

Beloved, you’ve had enough of simply going “with the multitude…to the house of God” (v.4) Right from your private chambers, let the Lord hear your “voice of joy and praise” (v.4). Then, you will not be “lost” in the crowd. You will cease to be a mere number filling up the pew. David declared: “Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls” (v.7). By the invocation of God’s Word, let Him “command His lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be” with you (v.8). You can wield the Sword of the Spirit, slay the demonic temptations to discouragement, expel joylessness; and feed the fires of Joy by your testimonies of Praise!