this morning I woke up with a certain scripture. After some research, I found it is written in Nehemiah. This is one of the rare situations that I like the German translation better than the English - it says something like "the joy in the Lord (or about the Lord) will give me strength".
So I started to think about what normally brings joy to a human being. It begins very early with birthday parties and Christmas - I think there's nothing like those days when we were little and someone gave us a a gift and it turned out to be something we wished to have for a long time.
I am very sure that this is not the kind of joy the Bible speaks about. Yes, we are happy and motivated for a certain time. I remember when we got games for Christmas, we could play with them all day long - but only for a certain time. And then to play with it got "normal" and wasn't as exciting as in the beginning. So that kind of joy gave some energy, but it was good or used for the subject itself and gone soon enough.
So what does it mean to be joyful in the Lord or feel joy about the Lord? It is a joy that doesn't revolve around my ego or comes from dreams that came true or desires that were fulfilled. It's not the joy about the blessings He gives me (I am thankful for those, though, that's not the point). Summarized, it is not the joy that comes from the things I recieve from God like forgiveness of sin, a holy life, gifts (of the spirit) and blessings. It is pure delight in the fact of knowing Jesus intimately and to only concentrate on Him as a person. I tried this today. Even if it hadn't had the side effect of providing an inner strength I didn't know before, I would like to encourage you to seek Him and get to know Him better! You will find a treasure unknown!
2 comments:
Hi Tina ~~ I had been thinking of you and also your FB but hadn't 'dropped in' yet. I am glad to have read this post. I agree with you 100% and it was sooooo refreshing to read.
Then tonight I was watching a program on TV called 'The Amazing Race' which airs on Sunday night on CBS. It is one of my favorites but this one reminded me of you and our visits to Bavaria.
Tonight the candidates took a train from Turin, or Torino, Italy to Bavaria, Germany, to start the activity part of this step of their race. One couple normally is eliminated on each program.
They left the train and traveled to Oberammergau, then to the "Princess (Neuschwanstein) Castle," and on to Füssen.
That was interesting seeing these areas again. In 2000 Mrs. Jim and I attended the Passion Play in Oberammergau. The night before we stayed in a B&B in Oberammergau.
Earlier that year we had stayed in Strassburg, Austria, for several nights and then went through to the Ludwig II castles, spending the next night at a B&B in Füssen.
We went on up to Rothenburg for a couple of nights and then on to Frankfurt to meet a tour group to east Germany, ending back up in Munich and the Passion play.
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For me the best example of joy, Christian joy, is the happy feeling when a person has accepted the Lord as Savior. Especially a young adult.
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love this one too.....
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