"The joy of the Lord is your strength" (Nehemiah 8:10). Joy is strength in the same sense in which despair is weakness. Joy in the Lord is one of the most aggressive of all spiritual forces. It was D. L. Moody who said that "God never uses a discouraged man." This joy is a power, because it is the evidence of a life happily adjusted to the perfect will of God. This strength is needed to overcome the manifold temptations that are ever at hand (James 1:1-3), and to uphold when we are made partakers of the sufferings of Christ (1 Peter 4:13). If joy in the Lord is to make us strong, then let us "Rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say, rejoice." May the Lord Himself fulfil His joy in us for His own Name's sake (John 17:13).

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