James 1:2 says to ‘count it all joy' when we experience trials and temptations in life. Paul says basically the same thing in I Thessalonians 5:18: "In everything give thanks." At first glance, it might seem like these men had spent a little too much time out in the hot sun to say such things.

How can we ‘consider it all joy' if we find out we have cancer, and perhaps only have a few months to live? How can we be joyful if someone close to us dies? I lost my younger brother Tim four years ago to an expected heart attack. Are these New Testament writers saying I should be joyful that Tim had a heart attack and died? What about being laid off from a job - should you think of this as being a big joy in your life? What about having your spouse divorce you after years of marriage? What about being injured? Should we be happy about all the bad things that happen?

Do these questions even make sense? NO! Absolutely not!

In I Corinthians 2, Paul says we should not combine the NATURAL with the SPIRITUAL. When we read the verses above from James and Paul, we often think about natural things in our lives, -- and try to make sense out of them spiritually. This is nonsense. It is indeed nonsense that we should be JOYFUL over life's BAD events.

See it this way: joy is a ‘vertical reality' founded in our spiritual relationship with God, - while happiness or sadness is ‘horizontal reality' founded on natural happenstances in this life. They are two different things. At the very least, one is spiritual and one is natural.

Don't confuse joy with happiness. Happiness is a feeling based on ‘happenings.' Good things make me ‘happy,' but bad things make me ‘sad.' We all have good and bad things that happen in life, and we respond to these by being happy or sad. This is natural. This is not being unspiritual.

But this is not what the Bible means by ‘joy.' Joy is a vertical spiritual condition. It is not based on horizontal outer happenings in life. It is based on ‘a spiritual state' existing within us, regardless of things that happen in the physical dimension of our lives. It exists because we know God as ‘Abba Father,' and because we know the power of the finished work of his Son Jesus on the cross.

None of us can deny it: bad things happen in life, and we are all going to die. This is the way of God. These things, and others, may make me feel sad, but these things do not define the JOY that is within me.

Connection with God creates joy. We are joyful because we know God, and we know the power of Christ's resurrection that secures heaven for us. Joy is a spiritual STATUS. Happiness is only a REACTION to good events. Only life in the gospel of Christ's finished work creates true JOY in us: ‘the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and JOY in the Holy Spirit.'