Joy is a feeling of great pleasure or of extreme happiness. Joy comes from the verb 'rejoice' which in turn means to show great joy or delight (English Oxford Dictionary). The Bible speaks of it no less than 209 times. From the Bible we learn that to worship and to praise God brings joy.
“And the children of Israel, the priests, and the Levites, and the rest of the children of the captivity, kept the dedication of this house of God with joy” (Ezra 6:16)
Their dedication was with worship and praise. Many times in the history of the Israelites, God strengthen them through joy. The Israelites had many enemies which needed to be conquered for these enemies hated them bitterly. You may ask yourself why does God place such an emphasis on joy. Well, joy for once makes you bold. Whenever you dare to take up on what is expected from you, you will do it, no matter how, and most probably you will succeed at it. Second of all, joy brings an expectation, a positive outcome. That is why God emphasizes so much that we should not fear but rejoice, in all we do. Even in our hardship, for if we expect God to help us through it, He will. Furthermore, we will not be easily defeated, we will stand strong against our enemy, Satan.
“Then they returned, every man of Judah and Jerusalem, and Jehoshaphat in the forefront of them, to go again to Jerusalem with joy; for the LORD had made them to rejoice over their enemies”(2 Chron. 20:17)
… for the joy of the LORD is your strength"(Neh. 8:10b)
So we see that joy is a mighty weapon that gives us strength. But how do we get this strength which the Bible so excellently describes? Through praise and worship. Whenever we praise God we will rejoice in Him. Whenever we rejoice in Him, He will come to our aid, He will give us the strength to overcome. Praise and worship draw us near to God. God not only is a God of love but He has a tremendous amount of strength available for us. He is more than willing to give it to us, for He knows we need it to overcome our enemies in this life.
“Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy: yea, upon the harp will I praise thee, O God my God”(Ps 43:4)
Praising God makes the heart joyful. It tears the negativity out of our hearts. And most important of all, praise brings God on the scene and when God is near, joy exceeds! Whenever we praise God we tap into His heart. Praise changes the heart of God towards us, praise gives us victory over our enemies, over our emotions. Whenever we are joyful our words sound sweet. We feel like singing all day, we rejoice in our joy. Life is so much better when we have joy.
“A man hath joy by the answer of his mouth: and a word spoken in due season, how good is it”(Prov 15:23)
Joy is a blessing from God for being obedient unto Him.
“For God giveth to a man that is good in his sight wisdom, and knowledge, and joy: but to the sinner he giveth travail, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him that is good before God. This also is vanity and vexation of spirit” (Eccl 2:26)
Whenever we walk within God’s Commandments, that He so graciously has set for our own protection, we will reap this joy. Needless to say that we all have experienced this joy, but we all have also experienced sadness whenever we have sinned and disobeyed His commandments. Whenever we sin, we reap the consequences of our sin, and one of the consequences is sadness and a heaviness of heart. But if we walk in obedience, we will not only benefit from God’s blessings, but we will enjoy His joy, which is a blessing that enriches our hearts. Oh, how much we love to walk in joy, don’t we?
We fill strong, courageous, the whole world lies at our feet whenever we feel joy! This is exactly what God wants for us, to walk through life with much joy. Joy makes us courageous and we will walk victoriously through life. God will show us how to move and when to move and we will be successful:
“Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore”(Ps. 16:11)
And
“And there ye shall eat before the LORD your God, and ye shall rejoice in all that ye put your hand unto, ye and your households, wherein the LORD thy God hath blessed thee”(Deut. 12:7)
Our being obedient to God will bless us immensely and we will prosper in all we do. That makes our hearts joyful. We will live a much nicer life, although not exempt from hardship. A good example is Job. Job lost everything but He remained under God’s laws and he kept his faith. It was really easy for him to blame God and loose his faith and become bitter. Though he wept bitterly, and he mourned not only the loss of his family but the loss of his business and wealth, but through it all, he remained faithful at heart to God. God restored him with even greater riches than he had before. It is said that his trial time was 140 years. That is a long time, and in all these years he remained faithful. God repaid him justly and restored his joy and wealth and in the end he could rejoice again in all he had been given by God.
Life is not always easy and for most of us, life will have its trials and endurances. We need them in order to learn to rely on God and ask His help in our times of need. I am convinced that God puts trials and endurance's in our lives so that we will turn to Him in our distress, and He in return, can show us His love, mercy and His glory. Through them He tests our faith. All we need to do is remain faithful and not sin. It is easy to fall into sin when life goes wrong. But if we remain faithful, God will not only deliver us out of our distress, but He will bless us with joy. “Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice”( Ps.51:8). God will give us joy to heal our hearts. A joyful heart is a merry heart and when we are glad and joyful, we will be better persons. Notice this in yourself. Whenever you have a joyful day due to answered prayer or due to something that God has done to you. You will reach out to others with a merciful heart. You want others to share in your merry and joyful heart. You will more easily forgive others. This is why joy is so important. It blends the heart and God knows it.
So let’s be adamant to walk in obedience so that we may receive His joy!