Last month I started a word study in Scripture to discover how many times the Lord told us to rejoice. As I was working on this, it dawned on me that God commanded us to rejoice repeatedly because He knew that we won't do this naturally. At times life is hard, we don't understand the trials that our loving Heavenly Father allows us to go through, and rejoicing is the LAST THING that we want to do. Yet, over and over in scripture we are reminded to rejoice.
After several weeks of research, I found 44 specific times in scripture where we are commanded to rejoice. Sometimes these commands are for specific times or occasions. Other verses simply tell us that we are to rejoice always or evermore. This is only the tip of the iceberg. I only looked for verses using the word rejoice. No research was done with any synonyms for rejoice.
What did I learn from this study? God wants us to learn to rejoice in Him, NOT OUR CIRCUMSTANCES. I have found that rejoicing is an act of the will. We determine what our attitude will be in any given situation. We can decide to trust God and rejoice in the fact that He is in control and there is a plan that will benefit us in the end. Or we can worry and fret while trying to devise solutions for the problem. The second choice is so silly because God can see the whole situation. He already has a plan that will work out far better than anything we can concoct. Yet, we humans seem to think we know more than God and with just a little help from above can solve our own problems. :-) In fact, we usually make more problems trying to do it our way instead of waiting for God's perfect plan.
When we choose to rejoice in situations that are incomprehensible, we show to the world that we trust our all powerful, all knowing Heavenly Father. Anyone can and will worry and fret when things go wrong. It takes the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome anxiety by rejoicing in who God is and the plans that he has for our life. The fact is when we allow the devil to win by rehearsing negative thoughts repeatedly and refusing to trust and rejoice we are sinning. It is up to us to make the choice to obey God or obey Satan. I choose God's way.
"Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice." Philippians 4:4
