How to Have Joy:
1) Recognize the GIFTS.
James 1:17 (ESV) Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
Psalm 119:105 (NIV) Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.
Psalm 56:4(NIV) In God, whose word I praise—in God I trust and am not afraid.
4 thoughts on God’s Word:
It’s BENEFICIAL. “Every good gift”
It’s FLAWLESS. “Every perfect gift”
It’s TRUE. “The word of truth”
John 17:17 (NIV) “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.”“
It gives LIFE. “Which is able to save your souls”
1 Peter 1:23 (ESV) since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God…
Romans 15:4 (NIV) For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.
2) PLANT God’s Word.
James 1:21 (ESV) Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
Galatians 5:22-23 (NIV) But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
3) Become a DOER.
James 1:22 (ESV) But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
Matthew 7:24 (NLV) “Whoever hears these words of Mine and does them, will be like a wise man who built his house on rock…”
James 1:23-25 (ESV) For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
4 Ways to Become a Doer
LISTEN
James 1:23a (ESV) For if anyone is a hearer of the word…
LOOK
James 1:23b (ESV) …he is like a man who looks intently…
LAST
James 1:25a (ESV) But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres…
LEARN
James 1:25b (ESV) …being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts…
Luke 8:1-3 (NIV) After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.