The Mystery Called Joy_3

<p>Thursday 3 June&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>This mystery called Joy 3</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Joy is indeed a mystery. How can you be excited in the midst of pain? How can you be celebrating God, when it's clear that everything around you is going wrong? Like we said earlier, there's a difference between happiness and joy. A lot of times people confuse happiness and joy, but there is a world of difference between the two. Happiness is from the things happening around you. But Joy is a function of what is going on within you, it's an outflow of the Spirit of God particularly, when we're talking about joy in the context of the kingdom of God.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>When you’re really God-full, then you cannot but be joyful. When you’re full of God, you will be full of joy. Why? Because the force of joy, flowing from the inside of you makes you see everything differently and makes you come to a conclusion that the average person will not come to. With all that was going wrong in Habakkuk’s, his conclusion was, "I'm excited and I'm celebrating my God." He could say this because joy detached him completely from all these things and he could see a better reality.</p> <p><br></p> <p>In the book of Hebrews 11: 19 the Bible says concerning Abraham “accounting that God was able to raise Isaac from the dead…” The word “accounting” here means to separate or segment things, particularly internal and mentally, and come to the right conclusion. So, when God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, Abraham was able to a segment in his mind and see God's dealing in his life and his conclusion was that God can be trusted. Abraham knew God had his best interests at heart, though God told him to kill Isaac, he knew some way somehow, God would still bring Isaac back to him.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Your ability to be joyful in the face of a difficult situation is a function of how much trust you have in God. The force of joy flowing God to us is able to lift you above current realities even when they are negative.&nbsp;Even though everything was go