The Oil of Gladness Instead of Despair

     As we work to create a Culture of Health this holiday season, where are our emotions? We want it to be a time of great joy but sometimes for some of us those holiday blues creep in. So how do we overcome the holiday blues, the holiday depression?

From a physical standpoint, well-known and beloved psychiatrists like Dr. Daniel Amen tell us that the best remedy for depression is exercise. So let’s just move it. There’s even more joy in moving in the dance. Maybe that’s why classes such as Zumba are so popular now.

Sweets can be the other great robber of joy. So watch out for them and eat healthy meals to avoid grabbing those ever-present sweets that surround us in the holiday season.  Also, sweets can give that happy-high that leads to that miserable-low. Beware of that trap too that wears out your glands and depresses your brain.

On a higher note where does true joy come from?

In the first century AD John was acquainted and filled with true joy and he tells us who that source of joy is. For he spent three years in the presence of Joy, walking, talking, eating, and living with him. In fact he wrote a book about the source of joy and that book is named after him.

In the fifteenth chapter of that book he relates the teaching of Joy, Jesus words to his beloved disciples. Throughout that chapter Jesus emphasizes two things: abide in Me and love one another. Then towards the end of the chapter Jesus sums it all up and reveals the source of joy.

If you abide in me and love one another, you will be filled with my Joy.

And so, Jesus came to bring “the oil of gladness instead of despair”.

And it’s not just a little bit of Joy. It’s a fountain of Joy, a fountain that keeps gushing forth even in the tough, sad times. It’s a fountain that cannot be stopped when you know true Joy.

That fountain springs from the source of life – LOVE.

God is love. It’s impossible for him to be anything else. He extends unconditional love to us every minute of our lives. There’s nothing we can do or cannot do that will make him take his love away from us.

And you are so loved, more than you can dream or imagine. Think of the person that you love the most. God loves you more than that.

Think of the person that loves you most. God loves you more than that. His love is higher and deeper and longer and wider than we can possibly fathom or understand.

You are a great treasure to the Father and to Jesus. In fact Jesus loves and treasures you so much that he asked the Father to give you to him. And so they created a grand plan before the beginning of time to rescue you for Jesus.

Jesus was willing to suffer everything that you might experience to rescue you.  He suffered betrayal, rejection, beatings, and insults; whippings that spilled his blood everywhere and an agonizing death so he could receive you into his family to live eternally with him in perfect love, joy and peace.

Through all of that torture that would have killed most men much earlier in the process he saw your face. That’s what kept him persevering until he destroyed death itself on that cross. He wants you to live with him in the amazing awesome love of the Father forever.

If you were the only person to ever accept his invitation to live eternally forever with him he would have endured all of that torture just for you. That’s how much he loves you.

If you haven’t met this great Love and Joy and want to know more about him, contact me. I would be glad to share with you.

In the Culture of Health for this Holiday Season may you live in true love, joy and peace.

Jesus is the Reason for the Season. 

Merry Christmas.

May God bless you and your household with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,

Dr. Jo