Obedience Is the Secret to Joy
By Rick Warren
“Let us test and examine our ways. Let us turn back to the LORD.” Lamentations 3:40 (NLT)
Joy is an easy thing to lose, but it’s also an easy thing to get back.
Have you lost your joy? First, you need to admit to yourself that you’ve lost it. And then you need to analyze the cause. Look at your life and ask yourself, “How did I lose my joy? What has robbed me of my joy?”
The Bible says over and over again that we should examine our lives. Lamentations 3:40 says, “Let us test and examine our ways. Let us turn back to the LORD” (NLT).
There are hundreds of killjoys, but the two most common I see in people’s lives are an unbalanced schedule and unused talent. You have to have a balance between rest and work, between input and output. And you have to use your unique, God-given talents, or you’re going to get frustrated.
That doesn’t mean that you have to find work that requires all of your talents. You can take whatever percent of your talent that’s not being used in your job and use it for ministry. (But if you’re in a job that uses less than 25 percent of your talent, start looking for another job that lets your gifts shine!)
There’s one thing that will rob your joy faster than anything else. Do you know what it is? It’s when you know the right thing to do and you don’t do it. The Bible says in James 4:17, “It is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it” (NLT).
If this is why you’ve lost your joy, you need to correct what’s wrong in your life.
Let me ask you: What do you know you need to be doing that you’re not? What has God told you to do that you haven’t started doing yet?
The secret to continual, abundant, and overflowing joy is obedience. It’s doing what God tells you to do. Every time you do what God tells you to do, your life’s going to be filled with joy.
You’re also going to be filled with joy when you think about what’s good in your life. David said in Psalm 126:3, “The LORD has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy” (NIV). The more you focus on what God has done for you, the more joy you’re going to have in your life. Why? Because focusing on your gifts from God produces gratitude. And the attitude of gratitude is the healthiest human emotion.
If you want to get your joy back, first admit it’s gone, and then analyze the cause. Then correct what’s wrong, and get an attitude of gratitude.
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This devotional © 2018 by Rick Warren. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
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