Joy

Nehemiah 8:10, "...for the joy of the LORD is your strength!"

This week we decided on the topic of Joy for the Bible study.  This is a topic I have discussed before, so if you would like to see my previous post on joy you can click here! I was happy to discover that quite a few verses that I had not previously looked up came about in our discussion.  Below are a few of them:

Proverbs 17:22, "A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person's strength."

 Isaiah 55:12, "You will live in joy and peace. The mountains and hills will burst into song, and the trees of the field will clap their hands!"

Isaiah 35:10 (also look up Isaiah 51:11), "Those who have been ransomed by the LORD will return. They will enter Jerusalem singing, crowned with everlasting joy. Sorrow and mourning will disappear, and they will be filled with joy and gladness."

 More Scriptures to look up:
Nehemiah 12:43
Galatians 5:22
Philippians 4:4-8
James 1:2
Hebrews 12:2
John 15:10-12
Psalms 65:8-13 (On a side note... Psalms are full of joy!  It is a great place to start if you are looking for some joyful scriptures!!)
Acts 13:52

After discussing the verses above, we discovered that Joy and love seemed to be connected.  You can't really have one without the other.  One of the girls mentioned when she is feeling down and not joyful, she refocuses herself by loving others.  This, in turn, brings about joy!

Spending more time with God was also a way to be joyful.  Someone experienced it first hand.  After spending three or so hours reading their Bible, praying, studying scripture, or working on memorization, people actually told her they saw a joy in her eyes!  Pretty cool huh? 

What can you do to bring more joy into your life?  What are your favorite scriptures on Joy? I look forward to hearing from you!

Blessings!
~ S*

Fruit of the Spirit

Over the next few weeks I am planning on studying each fruit of the Spirit individually, but today let's talk about all of them!

Galatians 2:22-23, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." (NIV)

The New Living Translation says this, "But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!" (Galatians 5:22-23)

Whenever I think of the fruit of the Spirit I think of a song that I learned when I was little:
"The fruit of the Spirit is not a banana, the fruit of the Spirit is not a banana. So if you want to be a banana, you can't be a fruit of the Spirit, 'cause that's not what it's all about. The fruit of the spirit is: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self control..."
As the song went you replaced "banana" with a different fruit each time you ran through the song.

Did you learn the fruit of the Spirit in a song when you were little? Seems so simple right? But it isn't always that simple to practice the fruit of the Spirit in our every days lives. How can we apply them? Which fruit is easiest for you to practice? Which is the toughest? In the upcoming weeks, I will give scriptures pertaining to each of these. Which would you like me to talk about first? Let me know; I look forward to hearing from you!

Blessings!
~ S*
If you would like to see a similar version of the kid song check it out Here!