{"id":17230,"date":"2022-12-11T04:39:49","date_gmt":"2022-12-11T10:39:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=17230"},"modified":"2022-12-11T04:39:53","modified_gmt":"2022-12-11T10:39:53","slug":"joy-joy-joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=17230","title":{"rendered":"Joy Joy Joy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s the third Sunday of Advent and time to sing \u201cGo Tell It on the Mountain\u201d! Well \u2014 not necessarily from a mountain \u2014 that would mean we\u2019d have to go climbing! Perhaps we can start right here on level ground to be joyful and full of the good news of Christ\u2019s coming to this world for you and me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The third \u201cpink\u201d candle is lit on the Advent wreath today. It symbolizes JOY. The third Sunday of Advent is meant to remind us of the joy that was born into this world when God became man. Joy that we can live in daily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

St. Paul wrote about that joy in Philippians 4:4: \u201cRejoice in the Lord always: again, I say rejoice.\u201d He wrote those words from a dark, cold, and damp prison cell. Paul is the kind of role-model we need in a world of idolizing sports figures, music, and film stars. The kind that finds JOY in the good news of Emmanuel, God with us, in the middle of our circumstances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aw! Sweet joy down in my heart to stay! PINK is the color for this 3rd Sunday of Advent. Typically, when we think of pink \u2013 we think \u201cgirly\u201d. We put our little girls in pink outfits with a pink bow in their hair to declare \u201cIt\u2019s a GIRL\u201d! In my case, my little Staci had NO hair so I scotch-taped a bow on her head. It\u2019s hard to believe that when we see the massive head of hair she has today!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pink isn\u2019t just about girls. God painted all shades of pink into a sunrise. And, like the various shades of pink, our expressions of joy can be so different. Joy can be exuberant \u2014 that jumping up and down of a child who is about to open a present.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

That was my daughter when she opened one of her birthday gifts from me a couple of days ago. I sent her the precious \u201cBread of Life\u201d scripture box that held tattered, worn, and well used scripture cards. It had been Granny and Papa\u2019s who used it daily to get one of God\u2019s scripture promises. She was overcome with joy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JOY is also that calm and peaceful experience of God\u2019s faithfulness. It can be calm confidence in His sovereignty, or pure delight as He expresses His love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PINK is also about a teenage \u201cvirgin\u201d girl named Mary, pregnant outside of wedlock. She could have been frozen in fear of her circumstances, of disappointing her fianc\u00e9e and her parents \u2013 never mind the \u201ctalk\u201d of the townspeople.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But instead of being frozen in a \u201cwoe is me\u201d attitude, she took ACTION and \u201cwent with haste\u201d to her \u201cold\u201d cousin Elizabeth who was six months pregnant. Her pregnancy confirmed the angel\u2019s words of \u201cNothing is impossible with God\u201d. Mary took the ACTION word \u201cREJOICE\u201d to the level that St. Paul did in his prison cell. In Luke 1:46,47 she said these words: \u201cMy soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit REJOICES in God my Savior!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the kind of JOY to this world that changes everything. That joy should never be determined by how we feel, but on WHO God is. The joy of the Lord can thrill us AND it can make us steadfast in the secure knowledge of Emmanuel, God\u2019s presence with us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5:16: \u201cREJOICE always!\u201d Jesus tells us in Mark 9:24: \u201cWith God all things are possible.\u201d That combination of trust should help us carry on from this 3rd Sunday of Advent to EVERYDAY being full of rejoicing and great joy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s the third Sunday of Advent and time to sing \u201cGo Tell It on the Mountain\u201d! Well \u2014 not necessarily from a mountain \u2014 that would mean we\u2019d have to go climbing! Perhaps we can start right here on level ground to be joyful and full of the good news of Christ\u2019s coming to this…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15708,1],"tags":[731,1210,1769,494,40,25352,41,542,585,15837,586,6506,15838,6911],"class_list":["post-17230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advent","category-uncategorized","tag-advent-wreath","tag-blog","tag-christian","tag-emmanuel","tag-inspiration","tag-its-a-girl-2","tag-joy","tag-mary","tag-pink","tag-pink-candle","tag-rejoice","tag-rejoice-always","tag-rejoice-in-the-lord","tag-third-sunday-of-advent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17230"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17238,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17230\/revisions\/17238"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}