Rabbi Schneider - Choose to Rejoice
Let's face it, life is hard. I mean, I don't know if I'm speaking for everybody, I believe I am, but I think life is hard for all of us. I mean, every single one of us wakes up in the morning, right? And immediately, oftentimes, we're faced with challenges, right? Things go wrong in this world. Sometimes if you live in climates where it gets cold and rainy or the clouds are out, you get in your car, it's still early in the morning. You maybe wake up in the morning on the wrong side of bed, we can't control our mood all the time, just like we can't control whether there's clouds moving overhead or not. It just life.
We all have to put on our socks one at a time. We deal with things in this world with stress, with relationships, with concerns about loved ones. Again, life can be hard in life can be difficult. But listen to what Proverbs 17:22 tells us, "A joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones". Listen again. "A joyful heart is good medicine". You know what Jesus said? Yeshua said "My joy, I give unto you". And Jesus said, "I've spoken these things to you that you might have joy and that your joy would be complete".
And so I want to put this challenge in front of you. I have a question for you. Is God a happy God? Is just who he is, right? I mean, God is happy. Nothing's ever going to change that. It's the essence of part of his nature. He is by nature, happy. He is by nature joyful. And the second part of the challenge is, has God called us to worship him? And obviously the answer is yes. So if God is happy and God is in relationship with us and God has given us His victory, then we have to combat bad moods. We have to combat when we're feeling down and we're feeling kind of just sad. We have to combat that by declaring, Lord, I will rejoice before you.
The Scripture says, Paul and Paul, sports rejoice before the Lord always again. He said, I say, rejoice. So what we do is we make a conscientious effort to bring ourselves out of loneliness, out of despair, out of sorrow. We don't ask our feelings what we feel like, but instead we keep our eyes on the Lord. He's happy. He's joyful. We should be happy and joyful just because he's our God, and we're born of him, and he's imparted himself to us so we can overcome our fleshly emotions.
And by faith we can rise up and declare, "Lord, I will be happy. I will have joy in you. I will not be spoiled. I will not allow myself to become overwhelmed with insecurity or doubt or frustration or sadness. I reject it. God, I'll rejoice in you".
Beloved, let me say this to you: if you were a rejoice in the Lord continually, not by putting your feelings first, but by making a conscious decision to simply begin to praise him, and thank him for who he is, recognize him. You don't have the right to be unhappy because you're alive. That's a gift to you. If you will rejoice before the Lord always, you will overcome, my friend, every single obstacle. This is Rabbi Schneider saying to you, God bless you, I love you and shalom.