Your Joy Does Not Live In Your Circumstances

Most of us have our mood decided for us before we even finish breakfast. Good news comes and we are up. A difficult conversation happens and we are down for the rest of the day. It feels normal because everyone around us lives the same way. But Jesus had something very different in mind for His followers.

In John 16:33, Jesus was honest with His disciples the night before His crucifixion. He said, "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." He did not promise a trouble-free life. He promised a joy that trouble cannot reach, because it lives in Him, not in your circumstances.

Philippians 4:4 says, "Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice." Paul wrote that from prison. Not from a comfortable study with a nice view. From a cell. His joy was not connected to his situation and that is exactly why no situation could take it from him.

Hebrews 13:8 says Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And Lamentations 3:22-23 tells us, "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness." So on the morning your exam results come back badly, or when a relationship falls apart, or when you get passed over for an opportunity you worked hard for, His mercies still reset. His faithfulness does not waver with your news feed.

Joy is already in you as a gift from God. You received it the moment you received Jesus. You do not have to manufacture it or wait for good news to feel it. You simply shift your focus from what is happening around you to who is living inside you. That is the whole difference.