Joy:
“…Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning.”
(Psalm 30:5, NLT)
Find a place inside where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.
Joseph Campbell
Scripture says that joy comes in the morning. When you wake up each morning, God sends you a special delivery of joy. It comes knocking at your door. When you get up in faith and make the declaration that “this is going to be a good day,” do you know what you just did? You just answered the door. You just received the gift of joy that God sent to you. The problem is that some people never answer the door. Joy has been knocking for months and months, years and years saying, “Come on! Let me in! You can be happy! You can cheer up! You can enjoy your life!”
Why don’t you make up your mind to answer the door for joy! Decide to wake up every morning and say, “Father, thank You for another beautiful day. I’m going to be happy. I’m going to enjoy this day. I’m going to brighten somebody else’s life. I am choosing to answer the door and receive Your gift of joy, today!”
We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.
“A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.”
(Proverbs 17:22, ESV)
Throughout life, there will always be something that will try to take our joy. If it’s not a grumpy sales person, it’s a family member aggravating you, traffic is backed up, your flight is delayed, or your spouse is taking too long. Don’t go the next 20 years allowing the same people and the same circumstances to frustrate you. Change your approach. What’s upsetting you now doesn’t have to upset you anymore. You can choose to keep your cool and stay calm and steady. Remember, a relaxed attitude is going to lengthen your life. The next time you’re tempted to be upset, ask yourself, “Is this really worth giving up my joy over?”
A PRAYER FOR TODAY:
Father, thank You for joy. Thank You for peace. Thank You for walking me through the difficult times. I choose to answer the door for joy every single morning so that I can walk in the strength You have given to me in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Success:
• On your track to success, never forget that you are crossing many rivers. Yes you are! And each of those rivers contain crocodiles that may attempt to intimidate you. Never be afraid; sail on and you will get there.
• Be like a train, it gets to its destination on time by staying on the track.
• No matter what has happened in your life, it is never too late to become everything God created you to be. The key is to clear out all the negative things people have said about you and focus on what God says about you!
• You are not who people say you are. You are who God says you are. You have to clear out what that old coach or teacher said about you. Delete it. Quit dwelling on that. You have exactly what you need for the race that’s been designed for you. Clear out what the counselor said, “You’re just a C student. You’re not college material.” Delete it. You’re an A student. You have seeds of greatness. Clear out what the ex-boyfriend or ex-spouse said, “You’re not attractive. You’re not good enough for me.” Delete it. You’re a masterpiece, one of a kind, beautiful, attractive, God’s prized possession. You might even have to clear out what a parent said or whoever raised you. “You’re so undisciplined. You’re never going to amount to much. You can’t do anything right.” Delete it. You are destined to do great things. You’re destined to leave your mark on this generation, and it’s never too late to embrace all God has in store for you!
Love:
• Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.
-Oscar Wilde
• Immature love says: ‘I love you because I need you.’ Mature love says ‘I need you because I love you.’
-Erich Fromm
• “Not height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
(Romans 8:39, AMP)
• Nothing can ever separate you from the love of God! His love is truly amazing. It goes beyond any human love we could ever know. There’s nothing we can do to make Him love us more and nothing we can do to make Him love us any less. His love is true and everlasting.
Hope:
• Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free.
Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of good things and no good thing ever dies.
-the shawshank redemption
• “Return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope; even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you.”
(Zechariah 9:12, NIV)
• When things get difficult, it’s easy to want to give up. It’s easy to get down and discouraged. But, that’s not God’s plan for us. God wants us to be so full of hope, so full of expectancy that we just can’t help believing for the best. He wants us to be prisoners of hope!
• When you’re a prisoner of something, it’s like you’re chained to it. In other words, you can’t get away from it. I know people that are prisoners of fear, prisoners of worry, prisoners of doubt. You’ve heard them. “Nothing good ever happens to me.” “It’s never going to change. It’s just been too long.” No, you’re chained to the wrong thing. You need to break those chains and become a prisoner of hope. That means that no matter how long it’s taking, no matter how impossible it looks, our attitude should be, “I just can’t help it. I know it’s going to work out. I know I’m going to overcome. It may be taking a long time, but I know this too shall pass. It may be difficult, but I know that means I’m closer to my victory because I am a prisoner of hope!”
Fear:
• You gain strength, courage, and confidence by each experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, “I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.” You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
-Eleanor Roosevelt
• You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn’t exist anywhere except in the mind.
-Dale Carnegie
• “This is my command — be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
(Joshua 1:9, NLT)
• Did you know that fear works just like faith but in the opposite direction? Faith opens the door for God to work in our lives; fear opens the door for the enemy to work in our lives. The Bible says that fear has torment. Fear has no mercy. If you act on fear instead of acting on faith, it will keep you depressed, miserable and lonely. So many people today are missing out on God’s joy, peace and victory because they keep giving in to fear. Don’t let that be you.
• Fear stifles our thinking and actions. It creates indecisiveness that results in stagnation. I have known talented people who procrastinate indefinitely rather than risk failure. Lost opportunities cause erosion of confidence, and the downward spiral begins.
-Charles Stanley
• 7 For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.
(Timothy 1:7)
• The good news is that God is greater than fear. His power in you is greater than any power that comes against you. But in order to walk in His power, you have to close the door on the enemy of fear. The enemy can’t have access to your life unless you open a door and give him access. That’s why we have to be careful about what we watch, what we listen to, what we read, and what we say. When we open ourselves to fear, we give the enemy opportunity.
There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.
Paulo Coelho
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Deuteronomy 31:6
Be strong! Be fearless! Don’t be afraid and don’t be scared by your enemies, because the LORD your God is the one who marches with you. He won’t let you down, and he won’t abandon you.
So many people today are living with less than God’s best because they’ve allowed fear to creep in and take root in their lives. Fear is the greatest weapon the enemy uses to try to hold us back. Fear is not from God. Scripture tells us that fear brings torment. It’s designed to paralyze us and keep us from God’s blessings.
Never Give Up:
• Never give up on what you really want to do. The person with big dreams is more powerful than the one with all the facts.
-H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
• If you really believe in what you’re doing, work hard, take nothing personally and if something blocks one route, find another. Never give up.
-Laurie Notaro
• “For God’s gifts and his call can never be withdrawn.”
(Romans 11:29, NLT)
• When you think about your future, what do you see in your mind’s eye? Maybe at one time you were excited about your life — you had big goals and big dreams, but you went through some disappointments or life didn’t turn out the way you planned and now you’ve just settled where you are. Understand, God’s plan for your life didn’t go away just because you had some disappointments and setbacks or because somebody treated you unfairly. God didn’t write you off just because you made some poor decisions. No, He knew every mistake you’d ever make; He knew every person who would wrong you, and He still called you. He still designed a perfect plan for your life. No matter what’s happened in your past, God’s plan for your good remains. He still has a bright future in store for you. If you will get your hopes back and get your vision in line with God’s Word, then the rest of your life will be the best of your life! Keep standing, keep believing and get a vision for your future because the Lord has amazing things in store for you!
• If you fall behind, run faster. Never give up, never surrender, and rise up against the odds.
-Jesse Jackson
• When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.
-Harriet Beecher Stowe
• “…For God has appointed another seed for me…”
(Genesis 4:25, NKJV)
In Genesis, Eve went through a great disappointment. Her son Cain killed her son Able which was the first murder in the Bible. I’m sure Eve, like any mother, was devastated and heartbroken at the passing of her son. But I love what Eve said in Genesis 4:25, “God has appointed another seed for me.” In essence, she was saying, “I don’t understand it. It doesn’t make sense, but I trust God. This is not the end. He has appointed another seed.”
Friend, when you go through things that you don’t understand, it is not the end. Nothing is lost in the kingdom. God is going to appoint another seed, and that seed represents the future. It indicates what is coming. If you will let go of what didn’t work out, let go of the hurts and pains, then for everything you’ve lost, God will appoint another seed. You’ll give birth to more in the future than you’ve lost in the past. Keep praying, keep believing, keep hoping because God is for you. Trust Him and embrace the good things He has in store for your future!
Thankfulness:
• Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.
-Oprah Winfrey
• One of the main reasons that we lose our enthusiasm in life is because we become ungrateful. We let what was once a miracle become common to us. We get so accustomed to his goodness it becomes a routine.
-Joel Osteen
• “No unbelief or distrust made him waver (doubtingly question) concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong and was empowered by faith as he gave praise and glory to God.”
(Romans 4:20 AMP)
Did you know that when you praise and are thankful you are putting your faith in action? And just as putting your physical body into action will make it grow strong, putting your faith in action through prayer, worship and thanksgiving will make it to grow strong, too!
Notice what this verse says about Abraham: No unbelief made him waver regarding the promise of God. What does it mean to waver? To waver means to go back and forth. It’s a very unsteady posture. Spiritual wavering is when we go back and forth in believing the promises of God. Wavering shows up in our words and actions. When you waver in your words, you are speaking contrary to God’s promises, and when we waver, we won’t see the blessing God has for us.
Scripture says that Abraham never had unbelief or doubting thoughts. He never wavered. He took captive every thought and stood strong through His praise and worship! That’s because praise makes you stable. It makes you strong. When you take time every day to praise and worship God, you’ll stand strong in faith just like Abraham and see the victory and blessing God has in store for you.
Forgiveness:
Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?
Abraham Lincoln
We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
(Romans 12:21, NIV)
The scripture says, “We overcome evil with good.” In other words, when somebody’s rude or inconsiderate, don’t sink down to their level. Don’t be rude and inconsiderate back to them. No, if you are going to rise higher, if you are going to overcome, you have to do just the opposite. You have to show kindness, grace and mercy. It isn’t always easy; in fact, it’s almost never easy. It takes a lot of humility to treat someone with respect who is disrespecting you. But do you know what happens when you walk in humility? God gives you His grace. He empowers you to walk in His goodness. Scripture plainly says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”