“…your joy no man taketh from you.” If this be true, and it is, then, any joy lost was willingly surrendered, not taken. Man can take just about everything we possess; but it is impossible for him to rob us of our joy. It remains ours until such time as we choose to freely relinquish it to some circumstance or individual. Our joy is one of the few things that spiritual thieves cannot break through and steal.
Paul had his freedom taken and was confined, but he still had joy in the jailhouse. They thought they had emptied old John of all life’s pleasures, but in that aged, earthly vessel remained his treasured “fullness of joy.” And when Habakkuk was stripped of all life’s blessings, he stood and testified, “Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.” Now we understand a little better the words “as sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing.”
You can’t rob a Christian of his joy; but he can relinquish it.
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