Philippians 4:4-6

Paul’s letter to the Philippians has a lot of great things in it. Starting at verse 2 of chapter 4, my Bible has the title, “Words of Encouragement”. Two women were disagreeing on something, so Paul asked for them to settle their issue. Then verse 4 comes into play. My NLT version says, “Always be FULL of joy…” I picture that differently than rejoicing. What about you?

To me, being full of joy is inward. It’s your heart choosing to express joy REGARDLESS of what is going on in your life. Rejoicing feels outward to me. Like worship or something. The key here is to not allow our circumstances to steal our joy!

One way to stay full of joy is by doing what Paul says in verse 6. DO NOT WORRY! Turn those worries into prayer! If you pray everytime you were about to worry, then at some point the worrying would stop. That makes room for joy to take over. I encourage you to try it.