Finding Joy

DEVOTION

PROVERBS

FINDING JOY

Prov 29:18

18 Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; but blessed is he who keeps the law.

NIV

The Hebrew would says; where there is no vision, no oracle, no divine communication the people will perish. This is what is meant by people casting off restraint. If we do not have any restraints on our behavior we will indeed perish. The Hebrew would translated perish means to ignore, let loose, let alone, neglect, show lack of restraint. This simply means to us that without the revelation of the divine word in our hearts we have no chance to live rightly. When people cast off the word of God, when they ignore it, when they let loose of it, they have no restraint. This type of attitude and/or behavior also brings about the other sense of the word perish. How can a person enter into the rest of God when they live without the keeping of the law? Yet we have been freed from the law, as it means the Mosaic Law, but we have not been released from the law of love, which Jesus says is the greatest command. If we look back at the Jewish people and when they lived according to God’s ways, they were happy. But when they rejected, when they lost their vision, they fell into slavery and were indeed very unhappy. We have an opportunity to have a vision. We have many ways in which we can have this vision. We can hear the voice of the Spirit either while in prayer or while we sleep, in a dream. We can hear the word of God exclaimed by an oracle, a prophet or preacher. We can see a vision through reading the scriptures. Here is where we find true happiness for in a vision, in a revelation of the truth of God we find our salvation, our eternal life as well as the joy of the Lord in our daily living. This happiness in not in abiding by the Mosaic Law as even the Jewish people were not truly happy trying to be successful at fulfilling every aspect of the law. It was a burden to them as it was meant to show them they could not find peace with God or his salvation through abiding by the Law. He was showing them through it, they needed a Savior and when he sent them Jesus, their Savior, they rejected him for the Law. They are still unhappy today and they will perish, although they say they serve Jehovah. They have no revelation, no vision of the Savior. We, on the other hand have seen the vision and experience the joy of the Lord. We live with certain restraints, although we have freedom in Christ. Some have taken those restraints to extreme as did the Pharisees. Some set up man-made rules over the years such as: No drinking, no smoking, no dancing, no movies, and no roller rinks, no, no and no whatever else some denominations included in their lists of don’ts. Many of these don’ts have fallen by the wayside in our more modern times, but some of them still linger on. But the joy of the Lord is not found in these restraints, however total unbridled living is not the answer either for experiencing pure joy. We cannot keep the Law, we cannot keep our own form of the law. What we can keep is our vision, our revelation, our salvation by remaining or maintaining our faith in Jesus. He is life, He is the source of life, and He is the only way we will find eternal life as well as pure joy in this life. Let us live in the joy of the Lord.