Read the transcript from today's video devotional.
Joy is unconditional happiness. Happiness—we all know what that is. Happiness comes and goes. Happiness is based on your circumstances. But joy is abiding. Joy does not care about circumstances. Joy is deeper. Joy is able to be joyful even in the worst of circumstances.
We get a glimpse of that in 2 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 10, when it describes Christians this way: "We are sorrowful, yet always rejoicing." There is a sense in which a Christian is always sorrowful, because there's a lot in a sinful world to be sad about. But a Christian is also always full of joy.
Who Is Joyful?
According to this verse, who is joyful? The answer is those who obey His laws and search for Him with all their hearts. They are the ones that are joyful, or the way the ESV puts it, "Those who keep His testimonies and seek Him with their whole heart."
You've got a couple ingredients that are there for joy. These are those who are joyful. One, they are those who obey God. If you want to disobey God, disobedience is a joy killer. Think of it that way. The lie is always that this thing I might do to dishonor God or to disobey God, that that's going to bring me happiness. But it's a lie from the enemy. In fact, disobedience, dishonoring God, is always a joy killer. The joyful ones, they are those who have given themselves to obedience of God.
The second thing that we're told here: those who are joyful are those who search for God, or those who seek after God. There's a similar text in the New Testament, Matthew chapter 6, verse 33, and it says there are those who seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. In the context of that verse, what it's saying is those who are seeking God, that is a cure for anxiety. That is a cure for worry.
Seeking God Is the Cure
Put that all together. We have now Scripture saying that a cure for anxiety and the way to get joy is to seek after God. It is to—the way the psalmist puts it—it is to search for Him. What does that mean? What does it mean to search after God? What does it mean to seek Him? I'll just say this: it means at least this. It means, friends, to be proactive in your relationship with God.
Joy is found in finding God. Joy is found in seeking God. The good news is God does not hide from us. As we draw near, He draws near. As we seek God, we find God. As we search for Him, we find Him. As we're proactive in our relationship, as we go to meet with Him, He will always meet with us.
The Active Pursuit of God
Let me read you this quote from John Piper. He says about joy, "It is not a passive state. It is the active, energetic, all-out pursuit of God Himself, to search for Him with all your heart is the pathway to the deepest joys, because He is the most joyous person in the universe."
To find joy, we search after God. We seek Him. We're proactive in our relationship with Him. How do you do that? You know how you do that. You read your Bible—God is speaking to you. You don't just read your Bible. You study your Bible. You meditate on God's Word. You pray to God, which means you speak back to Him. You share your thoughts. You share your desires. You plead with Him. We pray to God.
You get yourself around God's people. You commit yourself to a healthy local church where you can find fellowship with these people, where you can sit under the preaching of God's Word, where you can sing to God and sing to one another, where you can see the Gospel displayed through baptism and the Lord's Supper. This is what we do practically, to search for God, to seek after Him, that we might find joy.
