Bible Band

Lesson 12 ~ Third Week November

LEARNING TO INCREASE YOUR JOY

Background Reading:

Psalm 126:5; Proverb 1:5-6; 9:9-10; 16:21-23; Zephaniah 3:17; John 15:11; 16:24

Devotional Reading:

Habakkuk 3:17-19

Central Verse:

“The meek also shall increase their joy in the Lord, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.”

Isaiah 29:19, KJV

“The humble will be filled with fresh joy from the Lord. The poor will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.”

Isaiah 29:19, NLT

Key Terms:

Sustainer– A person or something that gives support or relief to.

Adamant – Unshakable or insistent especially in maintaining a position or opinion.

Navigate– To make one’s way about, over, or through.

Encountering – A particular kind of meeting or experience with another person: a meeting face-to-face.

Introduction:

Before you want to increase your joy, you must realize how important joy is in your life. There is a certain posture that a believer must get in so that his joy can increase. He must condition his mind and his spirit so that he can work on increasing his joy. Joy is a powerful emotion, and increasing it can remedy stress-related burnout. The joy of a believer should give them a feeling of immense pleasure and happiness. It should lift a believer out of feelings of despair and misery. Joy should cause a believer to be jubilant and joyful for contentment, and joy always helps to improve a person’s mental and physical health. When a person feels joy, he feels great about himself; he feels confident, powerful, capable, lovable, and fulfilled.

Many believers allow life’s problems to cause them to become fatigued, nervous, have headaches, or even experience feelings of depression. Increasing their joy will give them more strength, for the joy of the Lord is strength.

Discussion:

It has been said that the emotion of joy can become confused with happiness, but there is a difference between happiness and joy. Happiness is an emotional reaction to what is happening around a person. Joy is based on internal things that are happening inside a person. It is said that “practice makes perfect.” Well, it’s important that a believer make biblical joy a habit by encountering God every day and meditating on His Word. Joy is a fundamental part of a believer’s faith, so believers need to learn to reflect upon trials for this leads to moments of joy and peace. Wisdom is the mechanism between having trials and moving those trials into an enduring faith. As endurance, joy, and wisdom increase, the believer is further equipped to manage the trials that come into their lives. But during every trial, God will give the believer joy, and in a Christlike manner, he will be able to navigate through his life.

The demands, pressures, and stress in a marriage or in other relationships can cause great strains on those relationships. Believers must know how to be more loving, for the God in them is love. This will increase the joy in the home, the workplace, church or wherever the believer may find himself. Choosing to be more grateful instead of allowing things to get him down, the believer will find himself having more joy in his life.

Some believers find themselves sad because they don’t feel they are up to par in some areas. They strive but find that they fall so short of what they feel is God’s expectations of them. They forget that salvation is only possible through grace. All their striving brings nothing but sorrow and accusations from the devil (Satan is an accuser of the Saints). This leaves the believer sad, depressed, down in his spirit and very discouraged. The believer must learn to let his joy in Christ increase on this journey of grace. Knowing that it is not of works, but it is the grace of God.

Without faith it is impossible to please God. Faith is the undercurrent of everything that a believer does when he is following Jesus. Without faith, the believer loses all that Christ died to give him while he lives here on earth.

True joy comes from God when the believer fully surrenders his heart to Him and embraces God’s truth. He opens a space where joy will always be with him, but the believer must constantly seek to access that place of joy with God. Since God gives the believer joy, he must be adamant about taking a stand against the devil. He must resist the devil and cause him to flee, letting him know that he cannot have his joy.

The times that the believer feels low in joy, having feelings of discouragement, anxiety, and insecurity, he must take the time and stir up the joy that is within him. He can accomplish this by singing songs, reading praise scriptures and praying in the spirit. The book of Psalm has many psalms that will give the believers a great pickup, if we take time and read some of them.

Conclusion:

Jesus has a way of offering the believer an everlasting joy that will hold him up no matter what happens to come his way. First, the believer must hold fast to the profession of his faith; he must choose to have joy like a river springing up like everlasting life. Yes, the believer faces many difficult seasons in his life. Yet he has the power that comes from the Holy Spirit to remind himself that Jesus came early one morning and was laid in a manger. But He didn’t stay there, He went on to the cross where He gave His life which brought joy to the world.

Joy to the world, our Lord has come, let earth receive her King, let every heart proclaim that joyful sound, for Jesus is here to save His people from their sins. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. God cares about every soul and does not want any to perish, but to have everlasting life. God not only cares but He is a sustainer and will always come to the rescue of His children.

Questions:

1. How important is joy in the life of a believer?

2. What can the believer do to increase his joy?

3. What part does the Holy Spirit have in increasing the believer’s joy?

4. The more joy a believer has does what to him?

Essential Thought:

“The believer can have houses, land, jewels, or money;

but if he doesn’t have God in his life, he has nothing.”