{"id":16524,"date":"2013-12-26T01:22:26","date_gmt":"2013-12-26T06:22:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/?p=16524"},"modified":"2013-12-26T01:43:40","modified_gmt":"2013-12-26T06:43:40","slug":"great-joy-rejoicing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/2013\/12\/26\/great-joy-rejoicing\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Joy and Rejoicing"},"content":{"rendered":"

luke\u00a0\"SeekingHimLogo\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Each week during the season of Advent, our blogs will focus on a central theme which is associated with the coming of Christ\u2014His Advent. \u00a0This final week\u2019s theme is\u00a0JOY<\/span><\/strong>.\u00a0 Christians throughout the world celebrate Advent. \u00a0Some light candles or sing songs; some give gifts or \u00a0hang\u00a0wreaths. \u00a0All of these are simple joyous\u00a0ways of extending the celebration\u00a0of Jesus\u2019s coming beyond a mere 24 hours on\u00a0December 25.\u00a0Our prayer is that these devotionals\u00a0throughout\u00a0this season of Advent would help you to celebrate His first Coming and anticipate with\u00a0the peace\u00a0and joy<\/span> of His second Coming.<\/h3>\n

\u201cBut the angel reassured them, \u2018Don\u2019t be afraid!\u2019 he said.
\n\u2018I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people.\u201d
\nLuke 2:10<\/p>\n

“Don\u2019t be afraid”…”great joy!” God has sent His only Son as a gift of love, peace, joy, and hope to all mankind. \u00a0His Son, who would die for us so we could have everlasting life, is good news to all those that hear and believe (with faith) that Jesus was born, lived as a man on earth, and died, then rose from the dead. Good news is hard to find these days as news of odd and bad things now seem to fill the air waves and other news-reporting media. It is reassuring to know that Jesus is on our side.<\/p>\n

Just knowing that Jesus was born was great joy<\/span> <\/strong>for the people of Israel on the night He was born. They had long been waiting for their Savior to be born. His birth brought joy<\/span> <\/strong>to the people. His life brought peace and hope to those who believed, skepticism from those who did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah, His death and resurrection brought joy<\/span> <\/strong>and hope in anticipation of eternal life.<\/p>\n

It is hard to find joy<\/strong> <\/span>in death even though we know that, if our loved one was a Christian, that they are in a better place. Yet it is easy to find and show joy<\/span> <\/strong>in the fact that one day, if you believe in Jesus and the Resurrection, that you too will find the same peace and joy<\/strong> <\/span>when you see Jesus.<\/p>\n

Rejoice<\/strong> <\/span>in the Lord always; again I will say rejoice<\/span><\/strong>!
\nPhilippians 4:4<\/p>\n

Always have joy<\/span> <\/strong>in the Lord. Rejoice every day. As we immerse ourselves in this busy and joyous<\/strong> season, I always remember the words of Kevin\u2019s mother in the movie, Home Alone<\/span>, \u201cThis is the season of perpetual hope! This is Christmas!\u201d Just remembering those words bring joy<\/span> <\/strong>to my heart. Those are two of my favorite quoted lines during the Christmas season. I rejoice just in knowing and feeling that knowing Jesus brings thoughts of love, peace, joy<\/span><\/strong>, and hope.<\/p>\n

The shepherds found joy<\/span> <\/strong>in the news that their Savior had been born. Prophecy had been fulfilled. They were so overcome with happiness<\/span> and joy<\/span> <\/strong>that many of them left their own flocks of sheep to meet the Baby who would grow into the man who would save us all. We should all have the same joy<\/strong> <\/span>as we go through this holiday season and every day as we go into the New Year.<\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Dear Heavenly Father, we find great joy<\/strong> <\/span>in the gift that you sent over 2,000 years ago. This gift brings hope, love, peace, and joy<\/span> <\/strong>to us all. In Jesus name, we pray. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

luke\u00a0 Each week during the season of Advent, our blogs will focus on a central theme which is associated with the coming of Christ\u2014His Advent. \u00a0This final week\u2019s theme is\u00a0JOY.\u00a0 Christians throughout the world celebrate Advent. \u00a0Some light candles or sing songs; some give gifts or \u00a0hang\u00a0wreaths. \u00a0All of these are simple joyous\u00a0ways of extending […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":13840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3020],"tags":[4651,4894,3173,577,4896,3211,4865,746,4893,3783,3174,4895],"class_list":["post-16524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-devotions","tag-advent","tag-angels-told-shepherds","tag-daily-devotional","tag-joy","tag-joy-and-hope","tag-laura-pattillo","tag-luke-210","tag-peace","tag-philippians-44","tag-rejoice","tag-seeking-him-devotional","tag-week-4-of-advent","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SeekingHimLogo.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p39pHp-4iw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16524"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16528,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16524\/revisions\/16528"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}