The Source of All My Joy

December 18, 2015

The Source of All My Joy

“There I will go to the altar of God, to God—the source of all my joy.

I will praise you with my harp, O God, my God!”

Psalm 43:4

There are certain words we see and hear everywhere during the Advent and Christmas seasons. Joy and Hope are two of those words. In our cultural norms, we are taught that those words are grounded in our expected results for our life’s work. If we get our expected outcomes, we will be joyful. If we believe we have a reasonable expectancy of receiving those expected outcomes we will be hopeful.

Those seeking the life in Christ as our way of life have a different perspective on those words. We hope not in the things we can control; our hope is in the eternal love of God. Our joy is not grounded in the things we control; the source of our joy is God. The psalmist models this single-minded purpose: “There I will go to the altar of God, to God—the source of all my joy. I will praise you with my harp, O God, my God!” (v.4).The psalmist knew who alone could fill the God-shaped vacuum in his heart.

To help us maintain our single-minded purpose to ground our joy and hope in God, we often have scripture passages bookmarked, taped to walls or attached to our refrigerators. If you haven’t yet added Psalm 43:5 to your collection, today is a good day to include it in your personal bibliography.

Why am I discouraged?

    Why is my heart so sad?

I will put my hope in God!

    I will praise him again—

    my Savior and my God!

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.