It's a Joy Jubilation- Jesus is the Joy-bringer!

January 26-27

Final Days of the Praise Party #20 and # 21
This is incredible!  You are going to Jump for Joy!
Crown Him with Many Crowns by Chris Tomlin
http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=0910MCNU&utm_source=GodTube%20Today&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=01/24/2013

Was there a song, way back when, that had a lyric "Can't get enough of that funky stuff"?  That is the way I feel about a chapter on joy that I read in John Ortberg's book,  The Life You've Always Wanted to Have. It is chocked full of so much goodness, which just sank deep into my soul.

It has been an emotional week watching friends and family face some major health issues. One young woman, whom I love like a daughter, had a miscarriage and our hearts ache for the baby we will not hold here on earth.  Another couple, in a Bible Study we are participating in, each lost a parent.  While they were making funeral arrangements for the wife's mother in Virginia, they received a phone call that the husband's father had just dropped dead in Florida.  The wife lost her father in November.  That's a lot!
The Bible tells us to be joyful always. There's a hint that joy is not linked to our circumstances, but to our Savior.

Below I typed up the highlights of the chapter I read by John Ortberg.  There's no rhyme or reason to them.  Just statements I don't want to forget.

Joy Comments

“Joy is the serious business of heaven.”  C.S. Lewis

Life has two categories.  Living and Waiting to Live. 

The waiting moments are ones when I am not likely to be fully present, not to be aware of the voice and purpose of God. I’m impatient. 

The thing that keeps me from experiencing joy is my preoccupation with self.

Joy is at the heart of God’s plan for human beings…Joy is at the heart of God himself.  We will never understand the significance of joy in human life until we understand its importance to God. I suspect that most of us seriously underestimate God’s capacity for joy.

Jesus came as the Joy-bringer.  The joy we see in the happiest child is but a fraction of the joy that resides in the heart  of God.  G.K. Chesterton speaks of this:

“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony.  But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony.  It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. “

As an exercise in contrast, imagine for a moment how the opening sentences of the Bible might read if God were not a supremely joyful being. Imagine Genesis if God approached his work as we so often do:

In the beginning, it was nine o’clock, so God had to go to work. He filled out a requisition to separate light from darkness.  He considered making stars to beautify the night and planets to fill the skies, but thought it sounded like too much work; and besides, thought God, ‘That’s not my job.’  So he decided to knock off early and call it a day. And he looked at what he had done and he said, “It’ll have to to do.”

On the second day God separated the waters from the dry land.  And he made all the dry land flat, plain, and functional, so that-behold-the whole earth looked like Idaho.  He thought about making mountains and valleys and glaciers and jungles and forest, but he decided it wouldn’t be worth the effort.  And God looked at what he had done that day and said, “It’ll have to do.”

And God made a pigeon to fly in the air, and a carp to swim in the waters, and a cat to creep upon dry ground.  And God thought about making millions fo other species of all sizes and shapes and colors, but he couldn’t drum up any enthusiasm for any other animals-in fact, he wasn’t  too crazy about the cat.  Besides, it was almost time for the Late Show. So, God looked at all he had done, and God said, “It’ll have to do.”

And at the end of the week, God was seriously burned out. So he breathed a big sigh of relief and said, “Thank Me, it’s Friday.”

Of course, Genesis looks nothing like that. Instead it throbs with the refrain “God said, And it was so…and indeed, it was very good.”

On the first day, “God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good.”  The first day was a Dee Dah Day!  And God did a little dance.  And the next day God said to the light, “Do it again.” And the light did it again, and God danced once again.  And so it has gone every day down to this one-down to the morning of the day you were born; down to the morning of the day in which you read these words.

So it is with God, but not with us. 

For we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

 We will not understand God until we understand this about him; “God is the happiest being in the universe.”…And God’s intent was that his creation would mirror his joy.

“To miss out on joy is to miss our on the reason for your existence.” Lewis Smedes

Joy is a command. Paul wrote, “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say, Rejoice.”

Joylessness is a serious sin; one that religious people are particularly prone to indulge in.”

Your joy is your responsibility.