Your Joy Does Not Live In Your Circumstances

Most of us have our mood decided for us before breakfast is finished. Good news lands and we are up. One difficult conversation and the rest of the day is gone.

It feels normal because everyone around us lives the same way. Jesus had something else in mind, and He said so the night before He was crucified.

John 16:33 says, "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 and 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 view. His joy was never wired to his situation, which is exactly why no situation could unplug it.

Hebrews 13:8 says, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever." And Lamentations 3:22-23 says, "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 results come back badly, or a relationship falls apart, His mercies still reset.

Joy is already in you. You received it the moment you received Jesus, so you are not manufacturing it and you are not waiting on good news to unlock it. The Holy Spirit is the one who brings it up. Shift your attention from what is happening around you to who is living inside you.