Make Room for Joy
The Christmas season is a time where we are supposed to experience the joy of Christmas.
Yet, this is not often the case. We don’t experience this joy and maybe when we do it is mixed with sorrow.
I don’t know what burdens you are facing - personal burdens, family burdens, financial burdens.
How can we open ourselves to joy when we face all these burdens?
God made us for joy. Deep down we are wired for it. It is unlike anything the world can offer. If you have ever experienced this joy you know what I mean.
God’s joy points us towards our Heavenly home where we will experience the fullness of joy.
These are three ways to make room for God’s joy in our lives.
Gratitude
We open ourself to experience God’s joy when we cultivate gratitude. Are we grateful for the things that we have? When we practice being grateful for the small things this will help us to be grateful for the bigger things. The greatest gift that God has given us is the gift of God becoming human in Jesus. When we grow in gratitude for the gifts God has given us we open ourself to God’s joy.
Relationship
We open ourself to experience God’s joy when we nurture a relationship with Jesus Christ. The Christian faith is about a relationship with Jesus. Jesus loves you so much that He died for you. He died for you so you may live forever. Jesus is not a distant God who does not care about what happens to us. Joy is born in our hearts when we have a relationship with Jesus.
Sin
We open ourself to experience God’s joy when we turn away from those things that keep us from God. Sin is what keeps us from God’s joy because it is a rejection of the love that God offers us. When we are in sin and when we plan to stay in sin it is difficult for us to experience God’s joy. Jesus died for you, so that you may live as children of God.
This life will always have moments of joy and sorrow because we are still on Earth.
Jesus came into this world to bring joy in the sorrows of life. God has a plan for our lives even in the midst of sorrow.
Our hope is that in Heaven we will experience the fullness of God’s joy without any sorrow.