Oswald Chambers: Joy - Strength In The LordНамуна

Whether you are wise or foolish, upright or not, a king or tyrannized by a king, successful or a failure, in society or solitary, stubborn or sagacious, all alike ends the same way. All is passing, says Solomon, and we cannot find lasting joy in any element we like to touch. It is disastrous for a man to try and find his true joy in any phrase of truth, or in the fulfillment of ambition, or in physical or intellectual solitariness, or in society; he will find his joy only in a personal relationship to God. Jesus Christ is God manifested in human flesh, and we have to ignore to the point of hatred anything that competes with our relationship to Him.

The true joy of a man’s life is in his relationship to God, and the great point of the Hebrew confidence in God is that it does not unfit a man for his actual life. That is always the test of a false religion.

Reflection Questions: In what places or positions have I tried to find joy? In what ambition, belief, or conviction have I expected to discover joy? In what human relationships have I looked for joy?

Quotations taken from Still Higher for His Highest, © Discovery House Publishers