MERRY MONDAY BY PARRIS BAILEY-
“Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the LORD is your strength.” Neh.8:10
What a gold nugget found in the book of Nehemiah. The Israelites found themselves full of sin and compromise. After they had repented Nehemiah came back to them almost to say, “Hey, guys let’s remember that its His joy that will lead us on to finish this great work. For he knew that ‘Holy Joy will be oil to the wheels of obedience”. (Matthew Henry) Joy became to them as a strong citadel or refuge for God’s JOY makes us beautiful. He gives us Divine joy with strength. Another commentary called it INWARD GLEE!
Many times I have lost my joy. It’s easy to tell. I’m grumpy and get annoyed at everything. By the end of day I usually end up kicking my dog. (ok I’m kidding) It’s time for me to get myself back in to “worship, and enjoying His presence”. In fact usually Victory always has a service going on somewhere—thank God! He gives us strength for the journey and then some. When the bottom falls out of your life, I find that even then he is “crouching in the deep” waiting for that moment to catch us into his everlasting arms.
Spurgeon couldn’t have said it better: “Observe first, that nothing gives the believer so much joy as fellowship with Christ. Ask yourselves, you who have eaten at his table and have been made to drink of his cup, where can such sweetness be found as you have tasted in communion with Jesus? The Christian has joy as other men have in the common mercies of life. For him there are charms in music, excellence in painting, and beauty in sculpture; for him the hills have sermons of majesty, the rocks hymns of sublimity, and the valleys lessons of love. He can look upon all things with an eye as clear and joyous as another man’s; he can be glad both in God’s gifts and God’s works. He is not dead to the happiness of the household: around his hearth he finds happy associations, without which life were drear indeed. His children fill his home with glee, his wife is his solace and delight, his friends are his comfort and refreshment. He accepts the comforts which soul and body can yield him according as God seeth it wise to afford them unto him; but he will tell you that in all these separately, yea, and in all of them added together, he doth not find such substantial delight as he doth in the person of his Lord Jesus. Brethren, there is a wine which no vineyard on earth ever yielded; there is a bread which even the corn-fields of Egypt could never bring forth.”