Obey Your Way to Joy

It’s not that complicated… If you make the determination to seek God first, let His Word permeate your entire being, and then live in obedience to what God says, you’ll be in right-relationship with your Creator. Do that and you’ll be walking out your life with God’s presence surrounding you, His Spirit guiding you, and His power manifesting itself in the everyday circumstances of your life. And if God is that involved in your decisions, in the words you speak and the things you do—again, this isn’t complicated—if God is where you are, so is His joy!

Have you ever done something wrong, and you knew immediately that it was, in fact, sinful. If you’ve ever been in that place—and I know I have—and you’ve turned to God in repentance and received His forgiveness, what is it you felt? Freedom from guilt? Yes! Relief that God’s forgiveness is available for the asking? No doubt! And when you realize that whatever it was is no longer hindering your relationship and your walk with Jesus? Well, the universal result that I’ve experienced and observed, and that holds true in every genuine case, without exception, is an outpouring of simple, unsullied, absolute JOY!!

God’s Word is, quite literally, the way to joy. Follow the precepts and commandments of His Word, and joy will follow you more surely than day follows night. For those who follow their own way, who “do not accept divine guidance,” we’re told here that, “they run wild.” As the NIV puts it, they “cast off restraint.” Or if you prefer the King James Version, without a vision from God to guide them, “people perish.”

Take a look around at the end result of the relentless drive to exclude God from public discussion. Somehow, in the warped thinking of those who have cast off restraint, it’s perfectly okay to redefine every aspect of life, from marriage, to family, to when life itself begins, then ignore what God says about it all and work to make it unconstitutional—that is, illegal—to even point out the folly of that kind of thinking. This just doesn’t just threaten people on an individual level, it’s a devastating threat to society itself—and the one thing it will definitely not lead to is joy.

Immerse yourself in God’s precious Word today, obey it, and walk out its wisdom in your life, unless, that is, you prefer to live a life in which there is no joy.