Cultivating a joyful home

Okay, guys, I'm really excited about the scripture focus today because one of my favorite verses of all time for forever has been Nehemiah 8.10.

The joy of the Lord is your strength.

And I loved that verse before I knew the context, but the context really matters.

Context in when you're studying the Bible always matters.

And I think that a lot of people can quote that.

And I know I've been guilty of it before I knew what it meant, what it really meant.

But I would just, you know, you think of it on a coffee mug.

It's a great verse.

The joy of the Lord is my strength.

But if you really think about it, like, okay, I can be strong because I have the joy of the Lord.

But how can I have the joy of the Lord? Like, how do I get that? Well, listen to this context from Nehemiah 8, okay? So during this time, Israel had just returned from exile.

I'm looking at my notes so that I can get this right.

Jerusalem's walls had been rebuilt and the people had just gathered together and Ezra had read them the law of God.

He'd read the law of Moses to them.

And when they heard God's word, they started weeping.

So I don't know if you've had this experience, if you have been walking with Jesus for any length of time, but God's word can definitely, the Bible can do that, right? It's convicting.

When we look at the holiness of God, which we see in his word, we see our own sinfulness.

And that's exactly what was happening.

These people were hearing the word of God and they were weeping because they realized how far they'd fallen short.

They were confronted with their sin and the leaders told them not to stay in mourning because it's a day of holy celebration.

So the joy of the Lord is your strength, isn't just cheer yourself up and you'll have enough strength to get through the day of motherhood with Jesus.

Like that's a very shallow interpretation.

The deeper meaning is that our joy, just like the joy of the people who heard God's word and were weeping over their sin, was connected to God himself, his mercy, his forgiveness, his faithfulness, his goodness.

So the people back then who were hearing God's word were able to rejoice in who God is and what he's done.

It wasn't about, you know, try harder so you can be better Israelites and then maybe you can be happy.