Are You Lacking Joy?

 

I’m Duane Matz and welcome to Today’s Living Word.

 

Heb 12:2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

 

Let’s talk about joy today! Joy to the world, the Lord has come, and one of the reasons He came was to give you and I a joyous life. Unfortunately we often seek to find our joy in the material things of this world and we miss the boat!

 

The key to a joyous life is found in this simple line from Hebrews 12:2, “for the joy set before Him.” Jesus had a job to do, it was “set before Him” by the Father, and He did it! That was the key to His joy, and it’s the key to yours and mine as well.

 

Yes, it cost Him the pain and the shame of the cross, but He endured it and is now seated at the right hand of God!

 

As a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, saved by grace through faith, God has set joy fulfilling works for you along the path of your redeemed life as asserted in Eph 2:10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

 

Look for those works today, God gave you the DNA (physical and spiritual) to handle them that you may enter into the same kind of joy that Jesus experienced.

 

As you and I use our giftedness (talent) in the kingdom, we enter into the joy of the Lord, a joy that was promised to the faithful servants in the parable of the talents!

 

It was not just a “well done thy good and faithful servant” “enter into the joy of your lord.'

 

Are you lacking joy in your life. You won’t find it turning inward, but it is yours for the taking as you look outward, for those opportunities to love and serve that God will bring your way today.

 

I’m Duane Matz and that’s Today’s Living Word