Information Related to "Joy: Foundation for a Positive Life"
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Wouldn't you like to experience deep and enduring joy? Wouldn't you like to be joy-full? Please be assured-you can.
The world has a woeful shortage of joy and a surplus of fear, worry, discouragement and depression. Even the "pursuit of happiness" and obsessive pleasure-seeking do not bring deep and lasting joy.
Let's first understand the difference between joy and happiness. Happiness is an emotion, and God never intended for people to be in that emotional state all the time. There is "a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance" (Ecclesiastes 3:4).
Biblical joy-the true joy-comes from filling the spiritual void with good relationships, primarily an intimate relationship with the One who is pure joy. Jesus put it this way: "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit" (John 15:5). That fruit includes much joy!
The Bible speaks much more often of joy than of being happy. "Hap" means chance and is the root of several words- happen, happening, haphazard(dependent on mere chance), hapless, happenstance(a chance circumstance) and happy.
Related Information on UCG Sites:
Sidebar: Paul's Example of Joy - Even in Persecution
Table of Contents that includes "Joy: Foundation for a Positive Life"
Other Articles by Don Hooser
Holy spirit - comfort, encouragement: