Therefore, if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort provided by love, any fellowship in the Spirit, any affection or mercy, 2 complete my joy and be of the same mind, by having the same love, being united in spirit, and having one purpose. Instead of being motivated by selfish ambition or vanity, each of you should, in humility, be moved to treat one another as more important than yourself. 4 Each of you should be concerned not only about your own interests, but about the interests of others as well.5 You should have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had, Philippians 2:1-5 (NET)
We live in a world, a society that would tell us that “happiness is found in rising to the top, fulfilling our desires for pleasure, and in gaining the applause of others. To do so, we must avoid the friendships that are hard, shun the downtrodden for fear they might pull us down, and fight against anyone who gets in the way of our success. We cannot be distracted from our own happiness by someone else’s pain. We must shun those who do not fit our image for fear of what others might think.” Yet that is NOT what the Bible teaches nor is it the example of what Jesus Christ lived before us. Jesus showed us that true joy is found in humility, kindness, and in reaching out to the downtrodden, the broken hearted, and those whom society have cast aside as deplorable or unredeemable. Continue reading “How to Really Know Joy in Love of the Forsaken”