Episode 832 Joy in the Bible
[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 832 of the inspired stewardship podcast.
[00:00:08] Jennifer Lazzatto: [00:00:08] I'm Jennifer Lozado, author of inheriting chaos with compassion. I encourage you to find the ways to be loving with your family both before and after you pass. And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Maderer.
[00:00:30] Scott Maderer: [00:00:30] see, I think
[00:00:30] one of the problems that we have as we pursue happiness, because we want it to be a permanent condition. When by definition, happiness is never going to be a permanent. Condition happiness has to be temporary because it is not rooted in a relationship that is a terminal. Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts.
[00:00:56] If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, [00:01:00] then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling and the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself. Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.
[00:01:17]And today's spiritual foundation episode about impacting the world. I talk with you about why happiness and joy. Aren't actually the same thing in the Bible. I share several examples from the Bible of joy and of happiness. And I also talk with you about why joy is more permanent than happiness. One of the things that struck me this week when I was talking to Stacy Henry was when she was talking about the idea of opening that present.
[00:01:49] And that part felt joy that she felt as she did it. The truth is. That joy is something that I think [00:02:00] most of us as human beings really want. We seek that out. We seek out the deep whole soul filled feeling of joy. But one of the things that happens to us is I think we confuse joy and happiness.
[00:02:17] And I wanted to explore that a little bit this week around these areas of spirituality, time, talent, and treasures. So I'll talk through that this week. And today I wanted to talk about why happiness and joy are not necessarily the same thing. And if you read through the Bible, you'll even notice this, that those words are used differently in a way.
[00:02:44] Now the truth is that the words that are used in the Bible, of course, that we're reading in English are translated. And oftentimes when those translations are made, there's not necessarily a huge distinction made between [00:03:00] happiness and joy that comes through into English. But if you look through it and you really pay attention to it, you'll start to see some subtle.
[00:03:11] Differences, happiness. At least in the biblical sense is often used to describe that emotional feeling that we have when something good happens to us from outside. You get a big check and you feel happiness. It tends to be temporary. It tends to be fleeting. And it tends to be ever-changing.
[00:03:32]If you consistently get big checks, you stop feeling happiness around them until you get an even bigger one. It's a moving target. But joy on the other hand is used to describe the soul level happiness and at least in a spiritual sense for me as a Christian, it comes from having faith and beholding the beauty of Christ.
[00:03:58] It's rooted, [00:04:00] not in myself and not an external. Circumstances instead, it's rooted around the relationship that I have with God. And it's why if I begin to recognize that and focus on that, I can have feelings of joy, even when I'm not happy, even when things are not going well in my life, I can still come back to.
[00:04:24] Joy because I still have faith. The truth is what causes happiness is the presence of these external things. And when you take them away, then you feel loss. You feel unhappiness, but joy is about that relationship that we have with God. And that's really a big difference. So for instance, happiness is in the Bible.
[00:04:53] If you think about the example of Samson, a truly a hero of the Bible did a lot of work, [00:05:00] built the temple, all of these things. He sought happiness in his relationships though, with other humans, with women and with other men. And he often, because of that, if you read through. The story of Samson in judges, you will also see a lot of unhappiness as well.
[00:05:22] He was frustrated. He was happy when things went well and angry and sorrowful, when things did not go his way, he wasn't really experiencing that deep joy that I was just talking about. But joy in the Bible, if you look at things like Nehemiah, In Nehemiah chapter eight, verse 10, where he says joy of the Lord is by strength in the Psalms there's constant refrain of joy.
[00:05:53] It, James says, take joy in your trials in Peter first, [00:06:00] Peter, he says, I feel joy in all of these relationships that we have with Jesus though. You do not see him. You believe in him and rejoice with joy. The outtake outcome of your faith. So Paul is telling people, if you look at Philippians rejoice in the Lord, always again, I will say rejoice there's example, after example of calling out the difference between the temporary feelings of happiness and the deep rooted relationship with God that can lead.
[00:06:36] To joy. This is why joy can be a more permanent feeling than happiness, because the truth is joy is rooted in something that is a relationship with the eternal. And because of that, it can last longer and be deeper and have a relationship with you that [00:07:00] allows you. To be happy when you have moments of happiness, but to also feel sadness and moments of sadness and to be okay with the fact that you're not happy all of the time.
[00:07:12] See, I think one of the problems that we have as we pursue happiness, because we want it to be a permanent condition when by definition, happiness. Is never going to be a permanent condition. Happiness has to be temporary because it is not rooted in a relationship that is eternal. So how do you seek out joy?
[00:07:36] You develop that relationship with God. You develop that relationship at a deep level that lasts forever. There is where your joy lies. Thanks for listening.
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[00:08:37] Your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact the world. .