Discover Joy On The Journey And Don't Let it Go

By Peter Duncan Whitford

The Bible tells us that God wants all his children to experience his joy""the Joy of the Lord. But there are those in this world who don't want you to experience or even know about the joy the Lord has for you. In this book, you will ¥ learn the true meaning of joy. ¥ see how and discover why God's chosen people, Israel, kept losing their joy and how they would get it back. ¥ come to understand that joy is a choice. ¥ be able to identify the evil forces in the world who want to steal your joy. ¥ learn a method based on Scriptural principals that will help you to retain your joy, or get it back should you lose it. It is my prayer for you that God will richly bless you, that you will come to know the Joy of the Lord and that your joy may be full. God bless.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 7, 2018
• ISBN: 9781641912334

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Discover Joy On The Journey And Don't Let it Go

Peter Duncan Whitford

Copyright © 2018 Peter Duncan Whitford

All rights reserved

First Edition

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc

Meadville, PA

First originally published by Christian Faith Publishing, Inc 2018

ISBN 978-1-64191-232-7 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64191-233-4 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

To Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior

Introduction

The Christian heart is always full of joy. Always. Joy received as a gift and kept in order to be shared with everyone.

—Pope Francis (Twitter, 2/4/17)

This book is all about being joyful. More accurately, it is a how to book that describes being joyful and provides you with the tools needed to be joy-filled and remain that way. Should your joy begin to wane, it provides a technique to get it back.

One day, many years ago, I became a Christian by asking Jesus to come into my heart and be my Savior and Lord. My life changed drastically at that moment. I began to experience a new kind of joy—one which I had never known. It was the joy Jesus brings. In John 15:11, Jesus said, These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. I experienced the Jesus kind of joy the day Jesus came into my heart to reign as my Savior and Lord.

All Christians can be joyful because Jesus has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son (Colossians 1:13). Again, in 1 Peter we are told by the apostle that we are "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that [we] may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called [us] out of darkness into his marvelous light" (1 Peter 2:9). We are God’s people. We belong to him. He has chosen us, lifted us out of darkness, and brought us into his kingdom. This truly is a cause to be joyful. Without Jesus, we would not experience this kind of joy.

The joy we have from Jesus is intended to last forever, but as you have probably already discovered, there are those in this world who would like to steal your joy away from you and keep you from experiencing it.

Fortunately, you don’t have to let these joy thieves take your joy from you. But that doesn’t mean that they won’t try. Their one goal in life is to make you unhappy, and they want you to lose your joy. You will be tested. Those who want to steal your joy never give up. But you don’t have to give in. In fact, joy is a choice you make—it’s up to you.

Perhaps you have experienced times of sadness, and the joy Jesus came to bring vanishes— it seems as if God has just left the scene. But he hasn’t. It just isn’t so. God loves you and desires to be with you. In fact, one of the characteristics of God is that he is ever present:

The Lord is near to all who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth (Psalm 145:18).

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; be not frightened, neither be dismayed; for the Lord, your God is with you wherever you go (Joshua 1:9).

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? (1 Corinthians 3:16).

I am with you always, to the close of the age (Matthew 28:20).

Thou, O Lord, art in the midst of us, and we are called by thy name; leave us not (Jeremiah 14:9).

He is always with you and he always wants you to experience joy.

In this book, you will

learn the true meaning of joy.

see how and discover why God’s chosen people, Israel, kept losing their joy and how they would get it back.

come to understand that joy is a choice.

be able to identify the evil forces in the world who want to steal your joy.

learn a method based on Scriptural principals that will help you to retain your joy, or get it back should you lose it.

In 2 Peter 1:2, the apostle tells us, May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. He is saying that grace and peace will not only grow in you but will be multiplied in you as you grow in the knowledge of God and Jesus Christ our Lord. We grow in the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ our Lord by studying the scriptures. God’s Word is his gift to us, his love letter; and he wants each of us to open it, read it, study it, learn it, and apply it to our life situation.

The secret of retaining the joy Jesus came to bring you is found in God’s Word. There you will find his precious and very great promises, which are yours to claim since you are a child of his. Spend time in his Word and you will be blessed with grace and peace being multiplied unto you, as well as his joy, as you dwell in his presence on a continuous basis.

Throughout this book I will be referencing scripture passages. I encourage you to turn to them in your own Bible. Read them for yourself and reap the blessing God has in store for you. As you read God’s Word, think about what God may be saying directly to you. Do you see something of yourself in the people you are reading about? Try to determine what God may be saying directly to you through those people. If a particular scripture comes alive to you, I encourage you to commit it to memory. Then it will belong to you, and you will be able to call upon it at any time.

Hebrews 4:12 tells us that, God’s Word is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. His Word will change you forever and help you to become the person he wants you to be. You need only spend time in it.

All scripture passages quoted in this book are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, unless otherwise noted.¹

May God richly bless you and strengthen you as you journey through life that your joy may be full.

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¹ Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, Revised Standard Version New testament (New York: American Bible Society, 1980)

Revised Standard Version Old Testament (New York: American Bible Society, 1973)

Chapter 1

What Is Joy

Joy is the gigantic secret of the Christian.

—G. K. Chesterton

Joy is defined as an emotion of great pleasure evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune. It is a source of great happiness and cause of delight. The opposite of joy is defined as sadness, grief, depression, melancholy, misery, sorrow, unhappiness, discouragement, dislike, mourning, or woe. Proverbs 14:13 tells us that the end of joy is grief [sadness]. There are quite a few opposites of joy, but throughout this book, I am going to use sadness to lump those feelings when I refer to the opposite of joy.

At times, you may experience any of the above feelings. Sometimes you may experience total joy and nothing else. At other times, your feelings may be found somewhere between total joy and sadness. It is a sliding scale. At the left end of the scale you find total and complete feelings of joy, while at the other end of the scale, there are total feelings of overwhelming sadness. More than likely, your emotional state will be located at some point along the sliding scale, but the goal of our Christian life is to stay as far to the left of the midpoint of the Joy Scale as possible (the joy side).

Joy Scale

Joy………………Midpoint………………Sadness

There are different levels of joy that one can experience. There is the joy when reunited with loved ones, or the joy when opening presents on your birthday, or that experienced when you drive your brand-new car out of the showroom. But these joys are of a temporary nature. They fade when you disagree about something with your loved one, the gift wasn’t what you wanted, or you get your first scratch on the new car.

In the Gospel of John, chapter 17, Jesus prays for his disciples. In verse 13 he says, But now I am coming to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. Jesus wanted each of us to experience his joy. It is a joy that is not known to this world but a joy that Jesus wants all of those who follow him to have.

In the book of Nehemiah, the rebuilding of a wall around the temple takes place and the exiles returned home from Babylonian captivity. In celebration, the people gathered before the Water Gate. Ezra brought the book of the law of Moses before all the people who could understand and read from it from early morning until midday, and the people listened with understanding.

The Israelites had been in captivity and had fallen away from the book of the law. Upon hearing it and realizing how far away they had strayed, they were moved to tears.

Then Ezra said,

‘This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.’ For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. Then he said to them, ‘Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to him for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.’ (Nehemiah 8:9-10)

Why did Ezra say, The joy of the Lord is your strength? Why didn’t he say, Your joy is the source of your strength? It’s because he is not talking about worldly joy, the joy we experience on our own, but he tells of a heavenly joy, one which God experiences and shares with us his children, and from that joy, we receive strength—the joy of the Lord.

The Israelites had returned to the Lord with praise and thanksgiving. This was pleasing to the Lord and brought him joy. The people in turn were strengthened by the divine joy of the Lord.

Imagine the joy the Lord had experienced. His chosen people, who were exiled for their unfaithfulness, had returned to him. They sincerely repented for their unfaithfulness, even to tears, and turned back to him after hearing the Word of the Lord proclaimed. They had returned to Jerusalem and had rebuilt the temple and the wall around it. This was pleasing to the Lord. The Lord was joyful, and the people were rejoicing. Everybody was experiencing