Rejoice Always!ናሙና

Day 3: The Joy of the Lord Belongs to You!

Joy isn’t a feeling — it’s a decision that affects every area of your life. When you choose to rejoice, you’re agreeing with God’s Spirit inside you, and you receive the full confidence and strength of the Lord. When you’re facing troubling times, you never have to wait for permission to be joyful! Simply choose to rejoice and watch your circumstances begin to change.

Rejoice on Purpose!

We have been studying two small but powerful words from First Thessalonians 5:16: “Rejoice always.” As we have studied this verse throughout these devotions, we’ve clearly seen that rejoicing doesn’t always have to do with our emotions or circumstances — it has to do with making a choice to rejoice on purpose.

When you first came to the Lord, it may have seemed like the road of life was wide and filled with many acceptable options. But you’ll find the longer you walk with God, the narrower the road becomes because He wants to get closer to you. He wants to be more involved in your choices, and He wants to show up in your everyday life because He loves you. He loves you so much that He gave you His Spirit to help you make choices that lead to a joy-filled life. And one of the most life-transforming choices you can make is the choice to rejoice. The joy of the Lord is powerful, and His love for you is so great!

Is Joy a Feeling or a Decision?

You may be wondering, Is joy a feeling, or is joy a decision? Joy is a decision, but we get to feel it emotionally too. And that’s a wonderful thing! Most people I can assume like to feel joy, but there are times when we have to make a decision to rejoice before we actually feel it.

In the last devotion, we saw that the apostle Paul wrote to the church of Philippi about the importance of rejoicing even though he himself was in a horrible prison. His situation did not give him a reason to rejoice, but Paul still chose to be joyful and even urged the church to do the same! While in prison, Paul also found out that people were preaching the Gospel with ulterior motives — preaching out of envy, strife, and selfish ambition. Even while Paul was suffering in that filthy prison for preaching the Gospel in truth, he wrote this in Philippians 1:18:

What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice.

It didn’t matter what kind of news came Paul’s way — he was going to rejoice! It didn’t mean that he agreed with the behavior, but he decided that even though the Gospel was being preached for the wrong reasons, Christ was still being preached and that was reason enough to rejoice.

Sometimes it takes faith to rejoice, just like sometimes it takes faith to show love or be patient. The good news is, if you’re born again, all these characteristics are already inside you because the Holy Spirit lives within you! The Bible says that the Holy Spirit characterizes Himself inside you through love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (see Galatians 5:22,23). The fruit of God’s Spirit in you is joy, so all you need to do to rejoice is simply get into alignment with Him and the results will come.

Choose To Rejoice Anyway

In Habakkuk 3:17-19, we find an amazing situation in which the prophet Habakkuk faced great difficulty but chose to rejoice anyway.

Habakkuk was in a terrible situation. There was no fruit on the vines, no olives, no crops in the field, and no livestock. There was no provision of any kind — nothing to eat or drink — but even in the midst of this, Habakkuk chose to say, “...I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation” (Habakkuk 3:18).

You may think, How could Habakkuk rejoice in the Lord while dealing with such dismal circumstances? It wasn’t a feeling for him — it was a decision. He rejoiced in the Lord, and it gave him strength. Rejoicing made Habakkuk like the mountain goats who scale the sides of mountains. They have so few places to stand, but they don’t freak out or lose their nerve. They aren’t in fear or panic — but they continue to climb with confidence.

That’s what the joy of the Lord does when we choose to rejoice. It gives us confidence and strength because we’re using what God placed inside us to put on display and give it to others.

Questions to Consider:

1. At the beginning of this devotional, Denise Renner asked the question, “Is joy a feeling or a decision?” What was her answer? Do you agree or disagree with this?
2. Denise gave two examples of people who decided to rejoice before their circumstances changed. What can we learn from Paul’s example in Philippians 1:16-18? What can we learn from Habakkuk’s example in Habakkuk 3:17-19?