Again I Say Rejoice!

Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice. Philippians 4:4 (KJV)

This says we are to rejoice. How? By choice! And notice that the Apostle Paul said it twice for emphasis- just in case we didn’t get it the first time or we happened to be going through a tough time. When we don’t feel like rejoicing, then we are to make a decision to do so and act on it.

Rejoice in the Greek means to be cheerful, calmly happy, well-off. We are to rejoice in the Lord, so we are to get our cheer and happiness from God. He’s our peace, joy, and victory. We are to rejoice in who the Lord is. He is good and He will work good in our lives.

I must admit that my tendency has been to be negative at times, so I sometimes have to work at this. Life can be hard at times, but we must focus on the good and not the bad. If we just focus on and talk about the bad stuff, this puts us in a bad mood and we become very negative, miserable, and unhappy. That’s not what God wants for us. When we choose to focus on and talk about the good things in our lives, it gives us joy and we can hold onto our peace.

We must choose to rejoice in order to serve God with gladness. We do this by focusing on God- on who He is and what He has provided for us. As we focus on this and thank the Lord for the good He has given us, it will help us keep our joy.

The prefix re in the English language means to do something again. So, rejoice means we call our joy back, we become joyful again. As we focus on God and return to our first love, we are able to rejoice.

Get that joy back, my friend. Again, I say, rejoice!