Keep the J first

The Word tell us in Nehemiah 8:10, that The joy of the Lord is our strength. So... to have our strength, we must maintain our joy. Joy is a choice, we have to daily arise and say today I will choose to be joyful. This is the day that the Lord has made I will rejoice (be joyful) and be glad in it, Psalm 118:24 actually says, let us rejoice and be glad in it. So there once again, it is a choice. We must choose to be joyful. Although joy is a fruit of the Spirit and as a born again child of God with His God nature we possess joy, we still must choose to cultivate it in our daily lives.

 Anything that we have in the Spirit we must cultivate through prayer and reading and hearing the Word of God for it to manifest in our natural lives. When I was a child and going to church, I had some wonderful teachers. I can remember that in our room there was a sign on the wall that spelled out J- O- Y  Jesus first, Others second and Yourself last. This was the way to have and maintain joy. Although that was such a very long time ago, I can still see that little sign hanging on the wall of my consciousness and when I see it, I say yes Lord I will keep you first. When we keep Him first, everything else in this life falls into place. When we try to get the cart before the horse, so to speak, we end up in trouble and certainly not feeling very joyful. We try to do thing in our own way and in our own strength and we find out real fast that it just doesn't work that way. The Word tells us that He will keep us in perfect peace when our minds are stayed or focused on Him, Isaiah 26:3

In other words, the J must come first. When we get others or ourselves before Jesus, we can't get anything else in our lives to work right. He is our Redeemer, our Good Shepherd and He knows what is best for us. When we keep Him first, He will keep us in peace because He is the prince of peace. His favor will surround us like a shield, He will go before us and make the crooked paths straight and He will hear and answer our prayers. He has given us so many wonderful things and joy is one of them.

Sometimes when we look around us at all of the terrible things that are going on in the world right now and things that are going on in our families with our children, grandchildren, our jobs, friends, we might become discouraged but, if we keep the J first, we will have joy unspeakable and full of glory. No matter what the circumstances are around us we will be able to maintain that Spirit fruit of joy. When we realize how truly BIG our God is and how much He loves us and the great price that He paid for our redemption, we will be joyful. We don't have to be jumping up and down and dancing to be joyful. It's just a wonderful knowing that is inside your spirit, that says everything is going to be allright because my God is on the throne and He is in complete and total control and He loves me with an everlasting love, that will make you have joy! Let's keep the J first and the rest of our lives will spell out JOY!