Want JOY?
The secret to having JOY is love. Here it is:
J = Love Jesus
O = Love Others
Y = Love Yourself
The bible says the greatest commandment is to love the Lord thy God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your might. You START by loving the Lord Jesus.
The bible says the second greatest commandment is like unto the first… love thy neighbor as yourself. Add to loving Jesus- loving others… but don’t forget yourself. Loving yourself above or before Jesus or others is wrong… but to not love yourself at all is wrong too. If you leave out loving any of these (including yourself), you will not have JOY. You would have Oy, or Jy, or Jo… but not JOY.
Likewise, if you love any of these out of order, you will not have Joy. If you put yourself first, you are loving yourself more than others and more than Jesus. This is breaking a commandment and would give you Yjo or Yoj. Neither of which is JOY. If you put others consistently before yourself, you’re on the right track, but if they are before Jesus, you’re still mixed up and without JOY. You’d have instead, Ojy or Oyj.
Nope. There is no other way to get JOY. You have to have love for the right people and in the right order and amount. That is…
1. Love Jesus first. More than anyone else (yourself included!). Put Jesus first in ALL you do. Period.
2. Then love others. More than yourself. Think of others before yourself. (Think: polite, courteous, etc.) Go out of your way to help others; go the extra mile.
3. Then love yourself. Do not neglect yourself. Some people go too far with loving themselves, getting all puffed up with pride and putting themselves ahead of everyone else including God, even though they may not set out to do so intentionally. Others, though, go too far the other way and think so little of themselves that they completely neglect caring for themselves. They come to despise and loathe their own selves…their own body and mind. This won’t bring you JOY either. Don’t neglect yourself; take care of your body and mind. Yes!, put Jesus and others first, but don’t leave off the caring and loving of yourself completely or you will be left with either Jo (almost right) or Oj (nowhere near right).
To recap: The secret to having JOY is in having LOVE for the right people in the right amounts and order. That is:
J = Love Jesus
O = Love Others
Y = Love Yourself
Bible references: Matthew 22:35-39, John 15:10-11
(see I Corinthians 13 for more details on what exactly love -charity- is, it will give you ideas on HOW to love)
Posted: August 23rd, 2008 under FLYing, faith, mildly "article-ish", the changing me.
Comments: 2
Comments
Comment from Kelly
Time: August 26, 2008, 10:31 pm
Hey Chris!
You seriously must have the best blog title EVER! I love it. :o) This post is so right on, and it’s a message that everyone needs to understand. I love the “oy” part, LOL.
P.S. I snuck a peek at your project list…you MUST post about the cowgirl skirt when it’s done! That sounds too adorable!
Have a wonderful rest of the week, mama lady!
Comment from smurfytxmom
Time: August 27, 2008, 10:20 pm
Oh wow! I feel famous! KELLY visited little ol’ me!! I love your blog! I’ve been reading and watching you and MG grow since I discovered blogs several months ago. =)
This post pretty much developed itself during last Wednesday’s sermon (from I Corinthians 13). Some little comment the preacher said about joy and my mind was off and running.
I actually have the skirt finished (and 5 new pairs of culottes for gym…up next is a western shirt for the little man), but don’t have a pic yet. It is a long, slow process trying to get pics on here. I’m not as blog/tech savvy as you. LOL
Thank you so much for visiting!! =) I will try to get some pics on in the next week or so.
Write a comment