05/14/2020
Did you wake up happy today? Did you enter into your prayer closet with joy, or do you feel like you should be eternally solemn before God? On Sundays do we enter into the sanctuary with a stern disposition, and worship God with a pompous air? Do the circumstances in our lives seek to crush our spirit? God gives us many things but of them He most certainly wants us to receive His joy, and yes, happiness!
“Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the Lord.”
Psalms 144:15 KJV
I have worshipped in many places and churches, and with many people, but those that are filled with happiness, and worship joyfully when they lift up their prayers and songs, have truly found the Spirit of God. Seriousness in one’s belief does not preclude joy, and although God wants our respect He wants His children to feel His love, and be happy in Him.
“Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God:”
Psalms 146:5 KJV
In this time of COVID-19 it is easy to lose hope; to approach God with a sense of distress, and a feeling of anxiousness, but if our hope is in the Lord, and we know that He is beside us, then we can experience His joy in such days as this too. Our God’s promises are true, and none more so than when we are told that He will work ALL things for good If we love him... even the time we spend on our crosses, and even the paths that lead to death, because for the believer life doesn’t end with our last breath because we are made to reflect the image of Christ. We will rejoice in resurrection.
“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.”
Romans 8:28-29 KJV
We are meant to rejoice in God, and not find sorrow in the circumstances of Christ. If God desires that we rejoice in the death and resurrection of His only begotten Son, then how are we to feel when we face tribulation and death in our lives? If our Lord reasons that we should be joyful and rejoice in this, then what about our own lives should keep us from rejoicing in Him?
“More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
Romans 5:11 ESV
Our joy and happiness is a gift from God, so who are we to refuse it? When we approach Him in sackcloth and ashes then we have lost faith in His Word, and doubt His goodness, and desire for us. Even in our labor we are meant to find God’s good, and our enjoyment... our happiness.
“I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life. And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God.”
Ecclesiastes 3:12-13 KJV
So in the times we consider good or bad, hard or easy, sorrowful or happy, mournful or filled with rejoicing, bitter or sweet, and all the other times of our lives, we are to find joy in the presence of God, and to be happy in Him. No enemy, suffering, or sickness, not even Coronavirus or any derivative thereof, should stand in the way of God’s peace, joy, and His happiness in our lives. Nothing should be allowed to take away our hope, and crush our spirit.
“A glad heart makes a cheerful face, but by sorrow of heart the spirit is crushed.”
Proverbs 15:13 ESV
So perhaps you didn’t wake up happy this morning, but how will you go to bed tonight? Will you place your trust in God, and accept His joy in every circumstance? Will you see Jesus as you look at your life and experience His peace and happiness? Will you go into your place of worship, or prayer closet with a song? I pray that your faith be healed, and your belief strengthened.
Prayer:
Father, thank you for your overflowing joy, and bountiful happiness. Thank you for your Son Jesus Christ through whose life we learn to be rooted in happiness and hope, and in whose death and resurrection we experience true joy as we celebrate His life, and live ours, to its fullest. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you our God who fills us with joy in the face of all tribulation, and defeats the sorrow that would crush our spirit. Praised be your name Holy Father, as we lift up or voices joyfully towards your throne, and worship you happily from wherever we might be on earth, or in our lives. This is the day that you have made, and we will rejoice and be glad in it. Today we grasp our happiness from the clinched fists of Satan, and celebrate you in laughter and happiness forevermore, because our hope, and trust, is in you, and we lean on the promise of your joy and your desire for our happiness always.
“Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.”
Psalms 100:1-3 KJV
Rich Forbes