“Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe. Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision. For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.”Philippians 3:1–3
There are many people facing struggles and trials in life today, but few of us would want to compare our suffering with the Apostle Paul. He was beaten, stoned, whipped, jailed, shipwrecked, and chased out of more than one town. When he wrote his letter to the church at Philippi he was in a Roman prison. A few years later, he would die as a martyr at the hands of an abusive government. Yet throughout this epistle, Paul talks about the importance of rejoicing. Humanly speaking we would think that would have been the furthest thing from his mind. Yet he was focused on God rather than his surroundings, and so Paul rejoiced.
Charles Spurgeon said, “When the heart is full of joy, it always allows its joy to escape. It is like the fountain in the marketplace; whenever it is full it runs away in streams, and so soon as it ceases to overflow, you may be quite sure that it has ceased to be full. The only full heart is the overflowing heart.” Joy is not something that stays on the inside. When it is present, it spills out.
The problem for people who have no joy is that they are cut off from the source. Just as a fountain will quickly dry up if no water comes in but only flows out, our lives will have no joy unless we are walking in a close relationship with God and in the fullness of His Holy Spirit. He renews our strength and replaces our joy with His joy which never fails.–Daily in the Word
