According to the BBC, the British government commissioned a study to determine the happiest and unhappiest professions. Some of the happiest people, it turned out, were members of the clergy, CEOs, farmers, secretaries, medical practitioners, hotel managers, and primary teachers. At the bottom of the list: barkeepers, telephone salespersons, industrial cleaners, and debt collectors.
From a biblical perspective, we know happiness doesn’t depend on what we do but on who we are. Perhaps the researchers have it backward. Happy people seek out professions that fulfill them. But happiness is based on serving the Lord wherever we are, whatever our calling. True happiness is based on the joy of Jesus.
The central message of the book of Ecclesiastes is that life is fleeting and futile without a spirit of gladness, which only comes from a relationship with God. If we fear God and keep His commands (Ecclesiastes 12:13), we’ll have a basis for rejoicing all the days of our lives. The Bible says, “It is good and fitting for one to eat and drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labor…because God keeps him busy with the joy of his heart” (Ecclesiastes 5:18-20).
There is nothing dreary and doubtful about [life]. It is meant to be continually joyful…. We are called to a settled happiness in the Lord whose joy is our strength. Amy Carmichael
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I thought it fitting to share this devotional with you, because we have choices to make moment by moment whether to allow the devil to rule us and steal our joy, by showing us exactly what he thinks or to see that the "Joy of the Lord is my strength." Nehemiah 8:10. When we make life about ourselves, we are allowing the devil to rule us, but as soon as we make it about Jesus Christ, He is our joy, our strength, our shield and so much more. He is the representation of who we need to be. Take a moment, are you experiencing negative thoughts, are they consuming you? That is not what God wants, He says in 2 Corinthians 10:5 " We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."
When we live in the negative thoughts, we are not obeying Christ, we are walking in the flesh. When we start changing our perspective, we are allowing Jesus Christ to direct us. We need to be willing to give thanks to God for everything and that is even the hard stuff, because that is what makes us who He wants us to be. Changing our perspective will change who we are worried about. If you are looking only at yourself, you are not saying Lord use me, because it would not be about me, but Christ in me. That is why Jesus talks about selfishness, when we are only looking at I, we are not looking at Christ. Stop looking at yourself, take every thought captive and give it to God. Is it God or is it the devil causing you to see all your faults?
God does not come to steal, but to heal.
The devil comes to destroy you, so where are those thoughts coming from?
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