In 1646, life was most difficult.

• One could not get into his vehicle and drive to enjoy sharing a cup of coffee with a best friend.
• One could not hop online and enjoy shopping from the comfort of his couch.
• One could not drive across the country within his own car, exploring & enjoying the beauty of the land.
• One could not read a novel, for the pure joy of reading, especially if one’s family was not royalty or wealthy & also since novels did not yet exist.
• One could not communicate with a friend or loved one within a split second, enjoying one another’s company through a text message.
• One could not throw on jeans, a shirt, and shoes & then head off to church to “enjoy” fellowship with others.
• One could not readily receive the medical care we currently enjoy.
• Back then, people could not “enjoy” so many of the pleasures that we now “enjoy” in the 21^st Century.

Nevertheless, even back then (in 1646) a person could find joy in knowing God.

Most definitely, even back then (in the 17^th Century) a person could find joy in sharing time within the presence of God.

There is an aged document, and written in the words of this document, the Westminster Confession (a church document) we can find a statement that states how a man’s chief goal is to glorify God & enjoy Him forever.

That was the goal in 1646—like 376 years ago!

What about today—the 21^st Century?

Would we say, that remains our goal today—To Enjoy God?

Would we say that we “enjoy” sharing time within HIS presence?

When I was a kid tromping around in the Indiana dirt, my brother Ron and I played hard every day of the week.  Whether it was a school day or a weekend day, we were enjoying “playtime” ALL the time.

We could be found:

• Plowing, Cultivating, and enjoying the planting of our fields within our sandbox.
• Racing through the barnyard, enjoying the wind as it blew upon our face.
• Jumping from hog-house rooftop to hog-house rooftop, as we hunkered down, exchanging imaginary gunfire, enjoying the time, as we “played” cowboys.
• Peddling our bicycles down the flat road that lay parallel in front of our living room window, enjoying the fresh air of our everyday life.
• Setting up our roadways and then playing for hours down on our knees on the bedroom floor, enjoying even the rainy days when we could not go outside to play.

As a kid, “playtime” was fun & full of so much joy, all the time.

As an adult, “playtime” as we walk within our gift of a “lifetime” is so fun and still so enjoyable.

Within God’s Word, we find the “truth.”

This “truth” does not age or become outdated.

Still today, the Word of God pertains to us just as it did so many years ago.

Still today, the Bible instructs our steps, our life-path, even as it directed their steps back in 1646.

Within God’s Word, we find how God takes delight in us, (just as)  we are to delight in Him.

Let’s read the Holy Word of God together—today, searching the Scripture for the JOY God provides.

We, the people who know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, should be the merriest people found upon earth!

• Christ became flesh to provide “the only way” to God’s salvation!
• Christ became flesh to reveal God to us as we lived here on earth!
• Christ became flesh, and if we had lived when Jesus walked the earth in human flesh, we could have felt His human arm surrounding our shoulders!
• Christ became flesh so we too can know His presence even today!
• Christ became flesh so we could know God the Father—intimately!

If that’s not “pure” JOY for All Our Days—then truly, nothing is!

It is a fact.  God does not simply want us to “play” church, to be “religious,” or to live like people who can pull out our “religious ways” every once in a while.

• We cannot and should not ever desire to pull our “religion card” each Sunday morning.
• We are not pulling out our “Jesus” for a single day, taking Him out from a box we keep on our shelf.
• That truly is a most horrendous thought!!!

God wants us to walk with Him, & to talk with Him, & to listen as He speaks to us through His Holy Spirit, & to know Him in relationship, & to allow His Holy Spirit to guide our steps, & for us to allow Him to share an intimacy with us.

God wants us to know—the One & Only God—each one of us!

Think of it this way.

If the authorities were to come and dust our bodies for fingerprints, then they should be able to find Jesus’ fingerprints all over every area of our lives.

So, I wonder:

• Do we smile when we think of Jesus?
• Do we smile when we think of the Father?
• Do we just get giddy all over whenever we know that we are going to share time within His Word?
• Do we enjoy talking with God?
• Do we take pleasure in knowing Him?
• Do we enjoy being in God’s presence?

Yes, I am wondering if we are finding JOY for All Our Days?

• On Sunday—when we are given an opportunity for corporate worship?
• On Monday—when we head off to work?
• On Tuesday—as we settle in & are super-productive?
• On Wednesday—as we “make it halfway through the week of work?
• On Thursday—when we are so “thirsty” for the weekend to arrive?
• On Friday—as we consider what “fun” our weekend will hold?
• And even on Saturday, our day off work to do as we please?

Do we find deep, satisfying joy just being in the presence of God—Every Single Day of Our Week, 365 days of every year—despite what we are enduring in our days, as we walk the face of this earth?

Someday soon, when our final day comes and Jesus comes to bring us home, will the world find us smiling inside our being, as we pass away from this earth, because we know our eyes will soon see the face of our Jesus?

Let us always remember:

The Bible is not true because we believe;

we believe because the BIBLE is TRUE!