Advent Week 3 December 17th,2023

Depending on the translation, joy appears more than 100 times in the Bible.

Romans 5:1-11TPT

Joy is unending satisfaction only found in God

• It’s a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22).
• It is a posture of your heart

• Joy is a decision (prodigal son story)

To better understand what is Joy you gotta learn what Joy is not

• Joy is not happiness
  • Happiness is an emotion rooted in self’s pleasure
  • Happiness comes from the outside, joy comes from within
  • Happiness is conditional

This time of the year is the perfect opportunity for you to investigate your joy!

• To see if it really is joy or just fig leaves.

Fig leaves are whatever we create to hide the parts we don’t like about ourselves,literally & figuratively.

Society has a way of affirming fig leaves, especially this time of year.

Fool’s gold and/or fig leaves looks like this: “you are because you do”

*Family WHAT YOU NEED TO ACCEPT IS this: “YOU ARE BECAUSE HE DID”

*JOY DOESN’T COME BY THE WORK OF YOUR HANDS, IT COMES BY THE WORK OF CHRIST!

The sooner we accept that the sooner we can stop our endless pursuits for fake satisfaction.