{"id":38709,"date":"2025-12-30T22:00:48","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T05:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/?p=38709"},"modified":"2025-12-27T21:24:22","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T04:24:22","slug":"251231-joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/251231-joy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Joy of God"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Max Lucado<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cFor you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich\u201d\u00a0 (2 Corinthians 8:9 NKJV).<\/p>\n

No man had more reason to be miserable than Jesus, yet no one was more joyful. He was ridiculed. Those who didn\u2019t ridicule him wanted favors. Then they wanted to kill him. He was accused of a crime he had never committed. Witnesses were hired to lie. They crucified him. He left as he came\u2014penniless.<\/p>\n

He should have been miserable and bitter. But he wasn\u2019t. He was joyful! He possessed a joy that possessed him. I call it\u00a0a sacred delight<\/em>. Sacred because it\u2019s not of the earth. Delight because it\u2019s just that: the joy of God. He offers it to you, my friend\u2014a sacred delight!<\/p>\n

\"\"Read more\u00a0In the Manger<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cFor you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich\u201d (2 Corinthians 8:9 NKJV).<\/p>\n

No man had more reason to be miserable than Jesus, yet no one was more joyful. He was ridiculed. Those who didn\u2019t ridicule him wanted favors. Then they wanted to kill him. He was accused of a crime he had never committed. Witnesses were hired to lie. They crucified him. He left as he came\u2014penniless.<\/p>\n

He should have been miserable and bitter. But he wasn\u2019t. He was joyful! He possessed a joy that possessed him. I call it a sacred delight. Sacred because it\u2019s not of the earth. Delight because it\u2019s just that: the joy of God. He offers it to you, my friend\u2014a sacred delight!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38710,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[148],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-upwords"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38709"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38711,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38709\/revisions\/38711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}