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From Father Andrew Bahhi: Experiencing the Joy from God

December 02, 2018
in The Word
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Today, we are celebrating the visitation of the Virgin Mary to her relative Elizabeth. Last Sunday, we spoke of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary, when we spoke about the good news of the son who will deliver salvation for the whole world.

In her age, Elizabeth was old, but she is holding a 6-month old baby, and at that time Mary arose in great haste to deliver the joyous news. She was running.

And if we want to talk about the joy, we should seek a lot of things in our life that represents joy. We work very hard, so we can have joy, for ourselves, our families and our kids. So, we can live without worries or fear. We want everything around us to be happy because happiness is very important in our life. It is a universal desire.

Adam and Eve were created to enjoy paradise. But Eve wanted to enjoy the fruit out of desire earthly things instead of the life God had created.

So, there are two joys, an inner joy and outer joy. For instance, a lot of people connect their joy with what I have from the outside. The real joy will come from our faith in God in your heart.

There is a beautiful verse in the Bible that I repeat to myself almost every day as a reminder of the joy wants us to have. Nehemiah 10:8:

Do not grieve for the joy of the Lord is your strength.

We have everything here and yet our kids here still are not happy. And in Syria, after six years of war they are like ghosts. But they have nothing, and yet they still thank God for his mercies.

And back to Mary and Elizabeth, once the good news was delivered, in Luke 1:39-45. “As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy” – And in Syriac, the word was “dancing”!

This is the real joy, real happiness. The real joy from God is always permanent. It will never leave you.
Always ask yourself, “Do I have the Holy Spirit?” If you do, then you have the real joy.

Learn more in Father Andrew’s sermon video here.

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