"Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice."
What does this tell me about God?
"You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions." Hebrews 1:9
In the verse above, God is talking about Jesus. He talks about Him as being anointed with the oil of gladness beyond His companions! Which means Jesus was glad above all others. He is our perfect example of rejoicing.
What does this tell me about myself?
In the Bible, to rejoice means to be "cheerful". Cheerfulness is to be noticeably happy and optimistic. Although it may seem insignificant, there is a different between being cheerful and being happy. Being happy is defined as "having a feeling arising from a consciousness of well-being or of enjoyment".
You see, being cheerful is an attitude while being happy is a feeling. Feelings come and go. For the most part, we can't always control the way we feel. Sometimes we feel happy and sometimes we feel sad. Many of us pursue happiness thinking this is the goal in life. But in reality, it is not an attainable goal because we will not always feel happy. We can not always be at a high in life and remain in a state of constant happiness and feeling of well-being. This is why Paul in Philippians encourages us to "rejoice" or to be "cheerful" rather than happy. The reason is that being cheerful is an attitude rather than a feeling. An attitude is something we have control on. It is something we choose to demonstrate. So here, we're encouraged to have a cheerful attitude always. No matter what we feel, we shouldn't let that affect our attitude. This is why it says that cheerfulness is to be "noticeably" happy. Maybe on the outside we don't feel too great but the point is to have an attitude that shows the opposite. Now I'm not trying to say we shouldn't talk about how we feel and ignore our sadness or unpleasant feelings. I'm just saying that no matter what we are going through, we should try to live as optimistically as possible, telling our faces we are happy even if we're not. I can guarantee you that if you started by feeling bad and you start doing this (be more optimistic and appear happy), this will lead to you feeling better. On the other hand, the more we dwell on our struggles and sadness, the worst we will feel.
So we should always thrive to rejoice. Rejoice in the Lord. Why? Because we have a great reason to be optimistic! We have a Saviour who died to save us from pain and death! What a blessed assurance. Despite our failings and short comings, we can ALWAYS go to Jesus with our problems. This should be the motivation and cause behind our rejoicing. So let's all try to apply this to our lives and live more cheerfully day by day!
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