What Is Pure Joy For You? – By Eliezer Gonzalez

What is Pure Joy For You? – by Eliezer Gonzalez

Mar 21, 2016 2176

What is pure joy for you? Is it a day at the beach? Is it breakfast in bed? Is it winning the lottery?

The Apostle James starts his letter with a really strange statement. You would expect him to tell his readers to be joyful when everything is going well because the Lord is blessing them. Or at least to tell them to rejoice in everything. Or even to tell them to find something to be joyful about in the midst of bad times. Not at all – instead he writes,

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds – James 1:2, NIV.

What! James says that “whenever” you are facing trials – not some of the trials, but all of them – you should could it not as a little bit of joy, but 100%, unadulterated, full-bottle joy!

And the word “joy” in the Bible doesn’t mean a “grin-and-bear-it” kind of pious tolerance. It really does mean your “cup-runneth-over,” “jump-up-and-down,” “can’t-hide-it” kind of joy.

That’s a joy reflects the reality that we live in as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven – the reality that all evil has been overcome, even death itself; the reality that we are not only accepted by God, but are his treasured children, forgiven and cherished. And so we absolutely know that whatever we have to go through in this world, in God’s providence, can be turned for our good.

Choose today to breathe the sweet air of heaven, instead of the pollution that clouds the glory Christ has for us.

– Eliezer Gonzalez

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