Beside Myself with JOY

How can you really know how to have more joy in your life?  Before you can answer that question, you first have to realize that JOY is part of the Fruit of the Spirit – Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Goodness, Kindness, Gentleness, Faithfulness, and Self Control.  That realization brings forth two important facts about JOY.   First, if we have the Holy Spirit living within us (which all Christians do), then we have the capability within us to experience joy regardless of our circumstances.  Second, because it is a Fruit of the Spirit, we are not just capable of having joy, but are commanded and expected to have joy.

Those two facts help us understand that joy is not so much an emotion as it is a state of being.  Sure, there are some things that naturally produce joy in our lives.  We react to those things joyously.  This is Joy by Reaction.  It is real, but it is rare and fleeting. 

The Bible, however, commands us to rejoice and to be joyful.  Since scripture would never command us to do something we are not capable of, that means we are all capable of having Joy by Choice.  This is a step beyond Joy by Reaction and requires us to be actively obedient to the command to be joyful – regardless of our circumstances.

As Christians, however, we are supposed to be full of the Holy Spirit.  Since the Holy Spirit lives within us, the Fruit of the Spirit ought to be flowing from us.  Joy is a part of that fruit. As such, we should be striving for that place in our lives where we are experiencing joy – not by reaction nor by choice, but naturally through the outflowing of the Holy Spirit.  This is Joy by Nature and that is what we are all really looking for in our lives – to naturally experience joy regardless of our circumstances because the Holy Spirit himself has filled us with HIS joy.

Indescribable Joy: Discovering the Principles of Joy from Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, will walk you through eight principles from the book of Philippians that will help you progress through these three stages of joy so that regardless of what you might face in life, you too can have Indescribable Joy.

Indescribable Joy is now available in paperback and Kindle formats from Amazon.com or at http://www.jjdison.com/home/BookStore/indescribable-joy