Rejoice!

Rejoice! 

Dictionary definition-  Rejoice definition, to be glad; take delight (often followed by in): to rejoice in another's happiness

1Th 5:16  Rejoice evermore. 

We are told to rejoice evermore. What are we to rejoice in?

2Co 6:10  As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing…

We are told to always rejoice even when we are sorrowful.   A contradiction?  Seeing the newly grieving widow smile- a contradiction? Watching as one who has lost everything, smiles- a contradiction? What are these people that they can smile amid personal disaster? Have you ever smiled while your life has fallen apart? We do smile not because we are happy about the awful circumstances in our life, but because perhaps a wonderful memory causes us a moments happiness, or perhaps the slip of knowledge that life does go on with others around us has us looking a bit to the future.  Maybe that smile is from the hope that the one thing in our life that cannot be taken from us is still with us- the hope found in our Savior. We can be sorrowful and yet rejoice in the hope we have in Christ.  It is a very sad world we live in, yet this world is not where our hope is placed. While this world brings tears, torrents of tears, not just once in our life but over and over again, the hope of a better world in Christ remains. The knowledge that this is not where our hope is place gives comfort.  So when our lives are destroyed in so many various ways we can tell ourselves that this life is temporary to eternity, and take solace in the future when there will be absolutely nothing to bring us any sorrow every again- this is hope.

Php 4:4  Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice. 

We rejoice not in ourselves, or our circumstances because our circumstances can change in a moment. We rejoice in the unchangeable, we rejoice in the Lord always!

Mat 5:12  Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. 

We rejoice through persecution- physical, mental, emotional persecution- we rejoice because we comprehend those who are Christ's will be tortured so just as He was abused. We rejoice because we know heaven is the reward of the suffering.

Luk 10:20  Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven. 

Again, we do not rejoice even when we are used of God for His work, but we rejoice in HEAVEN. We do not rejoice in anything fully but our SAVIOR. The danger of rejoicing in anything other than salvation through our Savior is having those other things taken from us, whereas our Savior and the salvation He offers, the heaven He offers can NEVER be taken from us, never.

Rom 12:12  Rejoicing in hope…

We rejoice in HOPE.

Our hope is Christ!

1Ti_1:1  Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope

Tit_1:2  In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began

Tit_2:13  Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ

1Pe_1:3  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead

1Pe_1:13  Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ

1Pe_1:21  Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.

May we truly find our rejoicing in CHRIST, our Hope in our Savior, in the promise of heaven.

All in HIS LOVE!