Can I pray for you in any way?
Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
Then I will go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight. I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God.
Psalm 43:4
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 15:13
This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
Today, we enter the third week of the Advent season, a time when all Christian believers are to prepare their hearts to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Savior of the world.
As we learned at the start of the season, there are four weeks to Advent, each with their own theme. Week one was centered on hope and last week was fixed on the matter of peace with a seven message series associated with each. Today, we begin week three with a series on its theme: joy.
So where does the biblical discussion of joy begin?
It’s the same place that we started with hope and peace prior, the Lord Almighty, the One who is the source of all things.
Indeed, the joy of all believers is grounded in and anchored to the Lord. We see this evident in the words of the psalmist found in the forty-third Psalm, verse 4:
Then I will go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight. I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God.
Here we read wonderful words of devotion that are concentrated on worship so to extol God. The psalmist expresses a commitment to go to the altar of God so to praise Him because He, the Lord, was his (the psalmist’s) joy and delight.
Before I move on here, it’s important to visit the definition for joy, for then we can use that meaning to expound on the qualities of God that bring it (joy) to us. At its core, joy is simply a feeling of great happiness or pleasure and so in order to see how the Lord is our joy, we only need to understand what it is about Him that brings these things to us.
Now, I don’t know about you but I only need to go as far as giving thanks for waking up every morning to find reason to be happy and pleasured. For each time I awake from slumber, I am experiencing God’s grace and provision in its purest, simplest sense through recognizing and being grateful for the gift of life.
This present life is only happening because my heart beats and I am able to breathe in and exhale over and over and over again. This brings me joy in knowing that the very One who created me is the same One who sustains me so my body can function to carry out His purposes.
Friends, I could go on and on and on about things that make me happy, things that bring joy in my life like my mother, wife, daughters, grandchildren, my church and the extended family in Christ, the gifts God has given me to serve Him and others which include me composing this right now, my health, etc., etc, etc. Maybe you could make your own list but even though we might have difference things that bring joy the source of those things remains the same, the Lord Almighty.
Given this, my prayer over this third week of Advent is that you will fully experience the happiness and pleasure found in the One who made the way for Jesus, the real reason for the season. I could write my own wish of blessing on you but the Apostle Paul already wrote something better than I could do on my own so I’ll close with his words found in the fifteenth chapter of his letter to the Romans:
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. v.13
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
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