Hello everyone and welcome to the MilMac Musings Podcast by Destined for Glory where we reveal the intersection between God and science for living wholeheartedly.

This is our continuation in the fruit of the Spirit. And today we're going to be talking about joy, which is something that is different from happiness. And we're talking about the joy of the Lord too. we can have joy from a worldly perspective, which is again different. Again, joy in a worldly perspective can be fleeting, but thankfully with the fruit of the Spirit, the joy that we have is with us.

with us for all of eternity, here and now too, the Spirit. So, as we were preparing for the show, we mentioned a couple of things about joy and...

One thing for me with the joy that I receive is something that we are working to enter that joy to. that's a key, but it's in us. And the work that we're doing is not physical work. It is just about going into doing.

the work of the Lord. And that brings us just a different perspective in life. Instead of doing a worldview, which Joy again, is, you know, people have this amazing thing like, oh, this is the best thing that ever happened to me, I went to the Super Bowl. Or, and how fleeting that is, those types of, there's nothing wrong with going to Super

It's just temporary, it's a temporary moment in time and it's an emotion and a feeling. Right. Rather than something internal. Exactly, and they can't, you know, go into that.

They can't go to that. That's something like you said, it's fleeting, it's gone, it's behind them. But they're always looking for the next experience. But thankfully we have a whole different thing in Christ. And through the fruit of the Spirit and the Holy Spirit, and again, last episode we talked about Luke 11, 13, and how much more this God wanted us to give us the Holy Spirit when we ask. So we can ask for the Holy Spirit too. So it's just a great thing.narrowing into joy. Do you have anything else you want to add before we move further into the questions about that? No. Okay, good. Why don't we just, do want to take the question? Or a thought?

Yeah. Well, I mean, when you think about joy, how does the Bible describe joy? Well, for me, joy is really the Lord. 

Joy comes from Jesus and we look into Jesus the author and finisher of our faith and as we've talked about it before I think we talked about the last episode about what Jesus and Hebrews where Jesus was going through such terrible suffering and he went to his father in Gethsemane to talk to him and to ask him if it was his will if he could relieve that but he knew it you know after the first he just knew it wasn't so what he did is he put

all of that behind in the suffering and look to the joy for us. Right. So that's the joy we're talking about. Yeah. The love of the Father, the love of Jesus for us. And so we receive that joy with just such, I guess we would call it, I can't think of the correct word, there's so many words that come into my mind, but I think for us, it's the excitement of realizing who Jesus is and what he's done for us. All of this is part of the joy that we as Christians who are born again can lean into and walk in.

Yeah, I think to have joy in your life is not something you go, okay, I'm gonna have joy. You know, mean, because you can actually be going through some very difficult...trials or persecutions or challenges in your life and you can still have the joy of the Lord. when we're going through that and we do have that joy,

What helps us to continue to have that joy other than fixing our eyes on Jesus and knowing what He's done for us and who He is and who we are in Him? How does He tell us to respond to those things?

Again, it's just part of the fruit of the Spirit. When we have joy, we're looking at the eternal perspective. We'll look at what we have here now and what we have after we step just

across the line and there's no area of, we're in area of understanding.

that when that time comes when we go, He's overcome it. So we are from the absence of the bodies in the presence of the Lord. He has done everything from a victory standpoint and we just have to lean into the Holy Spirit and just receive the joy of everything. If you look at His life, His life He went through so much, but He had such joy. And that's what...

our Father is making us in His image. are we going to be perfect like Him? No. But He's making us more and more into that image day by day if we follow and renew our mind and just lean into Him as we do that. That's my thought on it. How about you?

Well, just, for me, I look at the scriptures and I think about how they guide us to be thankful in all things.

That's a great point.

joy and thankfulness are so melded together because it's not really you know being thankful that we're going through a difficult time if it is a difficult time but being thankful that God is with us in those times and that he is going to take us through those times and so we can be we can be full of joy knowing that he does have us and he is

going to take us through it and we just need to stay connected to him. So I think thankfulness also I think that it develops our character and it develops more joy in us and we may be surprised and find that we have other parts of the fruit of the Spirit within us that develop as a result of having that thankfulness.

That's a great way to look at it. Hayford in that book he was talking about prayer and

He said something that was really important that we, God doesn't say grin and bear it when we're going through these things. He's not saying just, you're on your own or, it's okay, I'm here, but you're going through it so don't worry about it. He's there, embrace me. Praise me because I've overcome this and I'm gonna help you to overcome it. And there's a great scripture.

which one is it? I wonder. Well, it's eight twenty eight. Yes. So as we've talked about before, if you wouldn't mind, because it wouldn't mind to.

Well, and we know that God works all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.

Right, exactly. as you're looking, know, the Psalms are a great place to look for the joy and rejoicing of the Lord. So again, what I was saying earlier in the last episode was that when we magnify the problem over and above magnifying God, that's where the problem

takes place because you're not focusing on the reality. That's the true reality. That's the spiritual realm and that's the greater of the two, the natural and spiritual. Everything came from the spiritual. So I don't want get too far into that but I was just thinking. Well he's just so much bigger than our problems. but we can focus on that and again I have to say I am learning. I am learning. So things come at me and I'm like and then I start to...going into this and saying help me and I'm like why are we doing that? And again it's why? And as I said to people before

I don't know how much time I've wasted in my life on focusing on what never happened. Worry? What ifs? What about the future? What about this? And when you look in the Bible, God says, I'm going to take care of you. But again, it's faith and love, and it's the joy of rejoicing in the Lord in what he's done for us. So again, the Psalms are a great place to look. And also it's the praise. I think it was Paul and Barnabas when they were in jail.

Oh my gosh.

Well, Paul was in jail. He was on Patmos. I mean, that was John.

No, no, that's okay. But, you know, Paul was in prison a couple of times. Yes. I forget if it was a...

he was taken, was called over to, can't, the name escapes me. But anyway, he was there and he was beaten and he was a Roman citizen. And long story short, he's in the depths of the prison. This isn't like a prison we know. This is in the depths of the prison. And they're sitting there, standing there in their stocks, and they start praising God at 12 o'clock. And the earthquake opened everything up. And the jail, this is the best part of the story. I can overlook this very easily, but as you read it,

the jailer and his family were saved. You know, it's just amazing. mean, everybody in the jail was listening to Paul and Barnabus and the singing praises and everything happened and the doors opened and everything's broken off of them. And the jailer's going to kill himself and Paul's like, no, no, no, we're all here. And he comes in and says, what must I do to be saved? And it's a great example. That's all you have to do. Yeah. Just to say, you know, to believe in the Lord. And it's just, for me, that's joy.

For Paul to be able to rejoice in that moment of such difficulty. So what would I do? I don't know. But I would hope that I would rejoice in the Lord. Because rejoicing in the Lord certainly is the better way of overcoming situations. Because nothing with God is impossible. And that's something I say a lot. Because there are times you look in a natural...

and you're not feeling the joy. You're not feeling, okay, I'm looking at it, I don't see things changing, I don't see this, I don't see that. But then when you're looking into the supernatural, and you're looking at God, and you're looking at, wait a minute, what did he do for me in the past? How did he get me out of this thing? How did he get me out of that thing? And even when I wasn't saved at the time, there things I looked back at, and I know they helped me. Because he knows everything, he knew I would come to him.

This is my thought.

I agree with you. I think I should be dead. I'm not dead. He saved me.

There's been a couple of situations where I could have easily have died. Anyway, long story short, we're coming back into the joy. But rejoicing in the Lord is the most important thing to help with the joy of leaning into His greatness. Yeah. That's so good.

When I think about joy, I also think about, like you talk about, you know, suffering or going through a difficult time. I think it's important for us to understand.

it's okay to grieve that hard time too. It's okay cry, it's okay to have those emotions and I think we should have them. It's healthy for us. In fact, I think the Bible tells us tears are cleansing and I don't know where it is but I know it's in there. so I think that as we take that time to do that,

and then we look back to him and we move forward, keeping our eyes set on him.

You know, another thing that came to mind as you were saying that we all grieve differently too. We different temperaments and we all grieve in different ways. So it's important, like Allison was mentioning, to do that because that's something that is really important. And I think I've mentioned before in various podcasts, I didn't do that at a particular time. And it was something that took me a long time.

to understand and to get through that. So I advise people to grieve. Yeah. To grieve that. And it's okay if you're grieving with God. God's right there with you. Right. The Lord's right there with you to help you to understand it, to hold your hand and bring it through it. So that's a great point. That really, really is. So thank you for bringing it up.

Sure.

Awesome point.

It's important for us. It is. is. When you think about joy and our lives as believers,

What does Jesus life show us about joy? Well, when you look at Jesus, I think it will...

I've seen this before, I think it was in Steve Backlund's book, which was a really great example. Jesus was invited everywhere. He was so embraced by people who were just considered lower than the Pharisees. But Jesus embraced them. And his joy was so contagious. And they wanted to be with him. And he was bringing the example of who God is through him. And that's exciting.

me, think Jesus exemplifies joy in a way that is perfect. And for us to understand, first of all, he's incarnate. So he had all the weaknesses we did. But he obviously had the strength and understanding through the Holy Spirit in him to overcome all of the situations he was in. And when you're looking back at the story where he was in his hometown and the crowd wanted to throw him off the cliff there, he walked straight through them.

his time. said, my time, so I'm going to go through.

But embracing Jesus and understanding the love and grace and peace of the Lord created, in my opinion, created joy for the people who were around him, his disciples and his people who were gravitating to him for his teachings.

I think he didn't let, you know, when you, just coming off of what you're saying, he never let what anyone said affect what he was here to do.

Right.

about him, Matthew was a tax collector and nobody liked Matthew. He was just like, he was the worst because he was the one taking the money from everyone and even though he was just the person in the middle, he was the one that had to go out and do the work.

He was pouring salt into the woman.

Yes. Very much so. And he was not a well-liked person.

Yeah. But he embraced the Lord. Yes he did. And the Lord just walked by him and said, follow me.

What did he do?

Yeah, he went right behind.

And the amazing thing, we have one of the gospels.

Yeah, Matthew. This is what Jesus did. And Jesus gathered all his disciples and they had dinner in Matthew's home, which for everybody that was just like, What are you doing?

He was putting all the...

ways the Pharisees were treating people, he was standing it on its head. He was saying, that's not the way to do it. They put law as God. Where Jesus said, that's not the way it is. And Jesus, one of things I loved about Jesus was that as you read about him, and this is what he does for us too, but when you read about it, does not, how can I say, condemn anybody. He just shows the love of God.

and the grace and the mercy and you know we're not perfect we're sinners we we are broken but we know that and we come to Him as George Barna said we are

we receive our security, success, and significance through Him by this. That's powerful. They put it in a great way, know, George did. And just really, it makes me think quite often. I go back to that because that's who we are. Because if we're looking at a world of artists, the joy people are seeing, okay, if I have this house, or if I have these cars, or if have this, well, then maybe if I get to do this, or maybe my next degree, or my PhD, or whatever it is.

It's fleeting. That's gone. It's gone in a moment. So when you look at, we're created in his image and he has a specific design for us and we've said this many times in a podcast, Psalm 139. Yeah. He knit us together in mother's womb. So he created us, he knows us and every day was written in the book before we even here. And we were just a thought. It's amazing.

It kind of makes me think about, you know, if you're married and you're going to

have a baby. I mean from the time I was a little girl I thought about having a baby one day. Right. And you know and then that came to be, and I mean, I know I'm not the Lord and all that but I'm saying we think about these children that we want to have. Sure. And he has that great love for us just and was thinking of us in the same way before we ever even were born. Exactly. You know.

And when you that's a great example of joy. I know for example with Cameron.

When he was born, it was such an amazing joy that was brought into both Kathy and I's life. And I look at him today and I just, the joy that I have for Cameron is just amazing. I look back when he was first born, Kathy had to have a C-section. And so I had the privilege of holding.

holding him in my arms. And he was there for so long, my arm was getting tired but I wasn't gonna let him go. But then through all the things, and like you're a children too, you remember them. You remember the amazing. Every moment. The amazing moments, know, it's so wonderful to remember the wonderful moments. I know there's times that are difficult because of the circumstances around, not so much for children's sake, but the circumstances that happen. But as you get older, you look back on that, and that gives me such.

What do you think God sees? Our Father sees the joy of us, His beloved. So it's exciting to talk about that because we have just a tiny fraction of what we can see our Father seeing through us.

Yeah, you know just using that example again, a mother carrying a baby. Sure. A mother carrying a baby and then delivering.

goes through a lot of pain and suffering and just, you know, I mean everything changes. And that is not something that she remembers for long. I mean, it's just, it's a moment in time and look what I got, this beautiful child and it brings so much joy to my life.

and it's ongoing and all that other, we go and we have another baby. So yeah. It's amazing that just that's that just tiny tiny little example but there's so much more he sees that we don't. Yeah he sees it all. he does.

He does. And that's the joy that

He wants us to have. And we ought to embrace that. again, it's a spiritual joy, a Christian joy. And again, we're not saying we're better than anybody else. It's just that we're fortunate enough to be able to lean into that and to understand we're forgiven, we're broken. Thankfully, he again goes back and he helps us and we receive his success and significance for us. It's just amazing. I love it. I just think it's great.

I was just thinking about, when you think about joy and you think about as a believer, contentment.

good point.

Do you think those differ?

I don't think too greatly. mean, contentment is...

I believe because we are contented, we have that joy of looking forward. First of all, again, we have eternal life. And secondly, we have it here and now. So I think we can have contentment and joy. I would say one leads into the other. That's the best way I can put it. So they're kind of tied together. yeah. Absolutely. Because if you don't have contentment, then joy would not be in the picture.

Yeah, so contentment comes from knowing that God is with you. God sees everything, knows everything. You know who you are in Him. You know He's working all things together for good. You really know it. You believe it. It's ingrained in you, if I can use that term. I it is a Holy Spirit thing.

teaches you because the Holy Spirit is our teacher. To know that is an amazing thing.

And so to be content and then have that joy. Right. So if you get behind a wreck on the way to a meeting, you can say, okay, well this is, you know, I know God didn't cause the wreck, but you know his timing is perfect. Everything will be okay. I'm not going to stress out.

It doesn't do anybody any good. Yeah. I mean, it affects you in a negative light and probably everybody else around you. you're doing something crazy. Everybody's pressure goes up though. The anxiety goes up.

That's a great point. When we look at, you brought something up, I just want to expound on it just a little bit, which is a great point about how it's in our heart and it's in green. But for me, always have to tend to remind myself, and this is the maneuver of your mind, to go back to that, to understand that that is the real you.

because you can quickly go down that rabbit hole to an area that you don't want to go to. But thankfully, if you're looking at it you're going down there, and this is the fruit of the Spirit, we can lean into him and he's going to bring us to the point of remembering of maybe a scripture, or it could be a thought or a word or something or a past experience that he brought you through, anything like that. And so it's just something I wanted to bring up that it's important to understand that we don't do these things perfectly, from my perspective.

it's just a matter of, I have to think about this too. But it's done by the Holy Spirit helping us. And it's a spirit, I think it's spirit infused to do that. And I thought, you know, because when Paul was going through it, you know, he embraced the spirit, the spirit was with him, and it was spirits infused intelligence that I was reading that, and it was a great thought that that's what...

he was able to do along with the apostles. When you look at, we've talked about this before, when you look at what Jesus did with the apostles and as he left.

there was only, you know, those were the only people that were going to bring this forward. But they did it with the Holy Spirit. Jesus told them, do not go. Until. Right. And then they had the best news in the world, but until you have the power of the Holy Spirit. Right. So it's important for me, from my perspective, too.

realize that God is always with us for us and I think you know as we move forward we have to be honest with ourselves. And it's okay you know to go through moments that are different and you know may understand it, no, but you may be going through difficult times but it's okay to go back and remember. Read scripture and things like that. it's helpful. Very much helpful. mean because we're still imperfect. Right, exactly. And we won't be fully perfect until Christ

returns and takes us home to heaven. yeah, I mean I think that's a great point. I'm glad you brought that up because it is so important to always go back and remind ourselves of these moments. I think you know just hearing the whisper of God's voice, knowing God's voice is so powerful in your life. If you don't know his voice, you

you kind of get messed up and on the path of and the joy of the Lord will not be with you because there is this thing inside of you that's going to tell you that it's not. You you're going to feel it. You're going to experience it. One thing that I'd like to add here to the scripture that I really

follow and listen to quite a bit because I can go, my temperament can go a different direction. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And as we go back to that, it helps me because there are times in my life where I may be thinking or a thought or whatever it is, but I have to go back to that.

the joy of what he did for me on the cross. He saw the joy of me and you and everybody listening who are born again believers, he saw the joy of that. And even if you're not a born again believer, coming to know the Lord, he sees that, knows that, and that's what he truly wants. That's the joy that was set before him. And so we can follow in that and understand that there are thoughts that come at us, and again, just a quick note, we're going through

a spiritual battle and we can't deny that. We just want to make sure that the scales are off our eyes and anybody else is in our sphere of influence if we can help them to get to that point. What you're saying makes me think, which is very true, joy is a choice also. Good. It is a decision that we make in each moment.

I think there's the story in Habakkuk 3 and it really does outline how joy is a choice for us. don't think we all go to read Habakkuk. we don't. But that's what's important about it. Just go ahead, finish your thought and I'll just add No, mean the scripture was, though the fig tree does not bud and there are no more grapes on the vine.

And this is in their time and this is kind of if you can apply, you know, well, you're not making any money or whatever it is. There are no more grapes on the vine, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will be.

joyful in God my Savior. And he's telling himself he's gonna be. And I think sometimes we have to tell ourselves, know, just, self? Right, that's a great way to look at it. Absolutely, we have to do that. And again, looking at the Old Testament, we have to include that because it's all the Holy Spirit inspired. You know, so we have Revelation of Scripture and then we have

the revelation, inspiration, and illumination of Scripture. So when we're listening to God, we do it through His Word, too. And we also can hear still, quiet voice. Not everybody can. Not everybody does. But you lean into knowing His way. And His way is through the Word. Through the Word is the number one way of doing it. Once we're in there, renewing our mind. So that's a perfect example of what the Old Testament shows us.

And that was through their context. But what the Holy Spirit does from their context to help us understand that's exactly the perfect way to look at it. Good job. I love that. It's great, great scripture. Thank you. Well, I know we talked about how we get joy. It comes from the Holy Spirit. But there's a scripture in Philippians where Paul teaches us about

where to keep our minds stayed. You want me to read that scripture? Yeah, if you would, that be great. Okay, so Paul tells us in Philippians 4, 8, finally, brothers and sisters, keep your minds focused on whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, and if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.

while that takes a huge renewing of the mind because when we're younger and our minds are being developed many, many times, I mean we are conformed to the world. Our minds are conformed to the world. so renewing our mind to be on these things is just a beautiful thing that God can do. It does. You know, have to tell you that something is, I think it's kind of funny. There's a scripture that I

say every night because sometimes it's been a tough day or I just love this scripture and it comes from what Paul says in this amazing verse 4-7, rejoice in the Lord always. I literally say that every night. So when we go for rejoice in the Lord always again I would say rejoice, let your reasonableness be known to everyone, the Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing.

and everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. With thanksgiving, how does it say? Praise God with thanksgiving, and I forget the rest, but it leads directly. requests known to Yeah, make all your requests known to Him. it just goes right into that. So when you combine those two scriptures, it shows you the complete way of joying the Lord through rejoicing, as we were saying earlier. Yeah. Joying the Lord. And that's funny to you.

have that scripture in there. I love that. That's how I close my night. I don't say rejoice in the Lord. I thank God for every moment no matter what it was. Whether it was difficult or whether it was exciting and fun and easy. You're doing exactly what the scripture says, which is awesome. really is. When you can't focus off of what you're going through and thanking Him. And again, every day I say thank you for this gift of life.

Can you think that we were all part of his plan for our life and we were part of creation before he even created it? And here we are, we're part of it and just to be so blessed to be a part of this creation is just an eternal life. And not only just to be part of his creation but we, you're here right now.

because he wants you here right now because he has purpose in your life for right now for what everything is that's going on in this world right now. Ditto for me and for every other believer in person. That's amazing to me. and I believe there really aren't any coincidences with God. He works things through His tapestry of the mosaic. Someday we'll be able to see it. But right now, if we can embrace that...

we get to see and understand, that's hearing from him. When we see things happen in our lives and we just say, hmm, that's not a coincidence. Right, yeah. And we get little glimpses. We do. And it's exciting. It is. And when you see that, you're like, wow, God, that's different. wow. Well, a person comes in your life, wow, that's wonderful. Look what happened here. Yeah. So again, when you look at it from a kingdom perspective, his kingdom, and it rules everything. Yeah.

in both here and the spiritual realm. It's just exciting and it just makes me full of joy, literally full of joy as we're talking about this. It really, really does and it strengthens us and it means me too. So that's great. I think about Paul and I think about how full of joy Paul was and everything that he did and it makes me go back to think about his life and what it was before he knew the truth.

and how he was so far away from what the truth was and what he was doing to people. I guess that's a way that I look at my own life and go, well, know, I was so far away from what God had for me and wasn't following his way. And to know that he's got me now.

and to know that he's with me and he's going to help me, he'll never leave me or forsake me and that I get to do it with him now and that I don't have to do it perfectly because I can't. That in itself brings me great joy to know. Exactly. And just to get back to finishing seven, it gives us the peace of God in our heart. Yes. And that's... So we're combining seven and eight as you did.

and what we're talking about here gives us the whole gamut of really just understanding that we're following Him and we're thanking Him and we're just praising Him that as you say, we're part of all this. And it's just when you can look at it from a kingdom perspective and seeing that we are here for a reason, that's just powerful. In my opinion, it's very powerful. Very. I mean, it changes your whole life.

completely. It does, and in a great, great way. And there may be people that don't see it. The change, you know. So much of it is from the inside. Right. And then a lot of it is from the outside after. It's an inside out change. Exactly, that's the truth. That's a great point. It's the inside out, and it's all from the Holy Spirit. And he has said that many times in the Old Testament.

that that's what's going to happen. And as Peter said, Joel in Pentecost, he said this was going to happen. And it's amazing that what happened that day, if all these people, and he said it, God said, I'm going to bring people back and then it's going to go from there. So in every region that the Jewish people, wherever they were sent, they came back to Jerusalem for that particular day.

And so that's the beginning of the Pentecost. The word was sent out. And that's just, I mean, that was a cryptic message from God where the enemy could never figure that out. But we were fortunate enough to be a part, we're on this side of the cross. And we can see it, and we just thank God for his absolute brilliance and knowledge and understanding and figuring out that he made a way for you and I and everybody watching to be in his kingdom.

Hallelujah. I mean it. Hallelujah. Because it's a better place to be. Absolutely. If you're not, you're in a place where I have been. And it's not a good place. And so I'll take this every day of the Ditto, ditto. Magnified. A million times. Really, when you think about it, you can't rejoice enough. It's just incredible.

books. Any other things you'd like to talk about? I don't have anything else to add to you. No, not really. I just think that these topics are really great to strengthen us as Christians to bring ourselves together to talk first of all. Again, it's really important to be in fellowship with one another but to understand this and to really follow through with just the joy of life. It's a very simple thing. Was there an excerpt you were going to read? thank you.

I thought you were going to read something about it. have the steel trap line. You do. But there was a quote, and again, recently I've been fortunate to experience understanding through a person that we both know, Pastor Jim Baker from Columbus, Ohio. And he mentioned this particular person, Steve Backlund's, book, excuse me.

And I've been reading a few of his books, but this one great thing, and again, it's something that we were talking about. Initially it's about the spiritual laws transcend the natural laws. So we're saying everything comes from the spiritual. But in the end, when you're looking at it, we're seeing that the laws of the natural realm are still submitted to the laws of the spirit, and the natural must yield to the supernatural. With the great reality in our hearts, let's obey 1 Corinthians 14 and and burn with zeal to see

an invasion of the supernatural gifts of the spirit that happened through us today. Let us like Philip in Acts 8 become the conduit for miraculous city transforming power that brings what? Great joy. It's a great quote. I think it comes in line with what we've talked over the last two episodes. And I believe that joy is an amazing thing.

It really is, we have it, and let's embrace it. Yeah, it's ours. It is. We can take it. Absolutely. Well, thank you again for joining us. Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you for joining us today. If you have questions for us, please email us at milmaccmusings at gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you. Have a blessed day.