Count It All Joy: Discover a Happiness That Circumstances Cannot Change

by David Jeremiah

The theme of this letter is joy. The word rejoice is found nine times, the word joy four times, and the expression “rejoice with” two times. Even though he was writing as a prisoner, Paul was filled with joy, and that joy permeates his letter. The secret of his joy was his relationship with Jesus Christ. The letter begins and ends with the name of Jesus. Forty times Paul mentioned his beloved Savior’s name, eighteen times in chapter 1 alone, which averages at least one citation in every two or three verses.

The prisons of our lives can often become places of great opportunity and ministry.

In her first book, Corrie ten Boom told of her experience in Ravensbrück prison during World War II. As she reflected on her own pain and suffering, she came to understand that one of God’s purposes was that her suffering should benefit others: God had brought me here for a specific task. I was here to lead the sorrowing and the despairing to the Savior. I was to see how He comforted them. I was to point the way to heaven to people among whom were many that would soon be dying. 6

What the Enemy hoped would thwart the gospel actually advanced it. If for no other reason than this, we should think twice before we complain about our difficult situations.

Adversity Produces Courage in Our Fellow Believers

When we magnify Christ, we do not do it microscopically. A microscope takes that which is little and makes it big. Our Lord is not little! Then we must magnify Him telescopically. We must take the Lord, who is far away from so many, and bring Him close at hand.

The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were not dark valleys to traverse.

“Life and death look to us like two evils of which we know not which is the less. As for the apostle, they look to him like two immense blessings, of which he knows not which is the better.” 17

Give me faith to meet them bravely, Trials I do not understand, To let God work His will in me— To trust His guiding hand. Help me to shine, a clear bright light, And not to live in vain— Help me hold forth the Word of life In triumph over pain.

So to worry is to have a mind divided between legitimate thoughts and destructive thoughts.

When worry takes over in our lives, it chokes out the word of God (Matt. 13:7, 22). It causes us to abandon our trust in the Lord, who tells us to cast all our cares upon Him

Forty percent of the things people worry about never happen. Thirty percent of the worries are related to past matters that are now beyond the person’s control. Twelve percent have to do with anxiety about health, even though there is no illness except in the imagination. Ten percent is worry about friends or neighbors, even though in most cases, there is no reason for the anxiety. Just 8 percent of the worries seem to have some basis in reality.

Here is a marvelous contrast! In nothing be anxious; in everything by prayer, let your requests be made known unto God. Everything is included in prayer that it might be excluded from care. We are not to be careful but prayerful!

Prayer does not always change the situation and make it better, but prayer always changes us and makes us better.

“As he thinks in his heart, so is he”

The word Paul used for “thinking” is the Greek word logizomai, which means “to ponder, to consider, to give proper weight and value to, to meditate upon.”

pointed out the nature of this truth when he wrote, “Truth in a police court is correspondence with fact.

Truth in the New Testament is correspondence with God.”

When one thinks on things that are not true, it is not long before his life reflects the falsehood h...

“You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You” (26:3).

The peace of God acts as a guard or sentinel at the door of the heart and mind to provide security. The word the apostle used is garrison.

It is this guarding of the heart and mind that provides the Christian with a decided edge when it comes to dealing with the pressures of the day.

“Christian contentment is the God-given ability to be satisfied with the loving provision of God in any and every situation.”

For the Christian, contentment is both an independent and a dependent quality. The things the world says are necessary for contentment do not matter to the Christian. The things the world says are unimportant are of vital importance if the Christian is to be content.

Lend your boat for a whole afternoon to Christ that it may be His floating pulpit, and He will return it to you laden with fish. Place your upper room at His disposal for a single meal and He will fill it and the whole house with the Holy Spirit of Pentecost. Place in His hands your barley loaves and fish, and He will not only satisfy your hunger, but add twelve baskets full of fragments. The Philippians sent three or four presents to a suffering and much needing servant of God, and from that moment … every need of theirs would be supplied.… We scratch the surface of the soil and insert our few little seeds, and within a few months the acreage is covered by a prolific harvest in which a hundredfold is given for every grain which we seemed to throw away. God refuses to be in debt to any man.

It consists in nothing more than making a right use of my eyes. In whatever state I am, I first of all look up to heaven and remember that my principal business here is to get there. Then I look down upon the earth, and call to mind how small a place I shall occupy in it when I die and am buried. I then look around in the world, and observe what multitudes there are who are in many respects more unhappy than myself. Thus I learn where true happiness is placed, where all our cares must end, and what little reason I have to complain. 17