{"id":10732,"date":"2023-10-23T02:56:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-23T02:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=10732"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:32:46","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:32:46","slug":"rejoice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=10732","title":{"rendered":"REJOICE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><i><span class=\"reftext\" style=\"color: #b34700;font-weight: 700;margin-left: 1px;margin-right: 2px;vertical-align: text-top\"><a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/philippians\/4-4.htm\" style=\"color: #008ae6\">4<\/a>Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!\u00a0<a name=\"6\"><\/a><span class=\"reftext\" style=\"color: #b34700;font-weight: 700;margin-left: 1px;margin-right: 2px;vertical-align: text-top\"><a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/philippians\/4-5.htm\" style=\"color: #008ae6\">5<\/a><\/span>Let your gentleness be apparent to all. The Lord is near.\u00a0<span class=\"reftext\" style=\"color: #b34700;font-weight: 700;margin-left: 1px;margin-right: 2px;vertical-align: text-top\"><a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/philippians\/4-6.htm\" style=\"color: #008ae6\">6<\/a><\/span>Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.\u00a0<a name=\"8\"><\/a><span class=\"reftext\" style=\"color: #b34700;font-weight: 700;margin-left: 1px;margin-right: 2px;vertical-align: text-top\"><a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/philippians\/4-7.htm\" style=\"color: #008ae6\">7<\/a><\/span>And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.<\/i> (Phil 4:4-7)<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We tend to think of rejoicing as being the opposite of sorrowing, mourning, or grieving.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But here Paul seems to imply that what stands opposed to our rejoicing is not sorrow but anxiety.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When I am anxious, my mind is occupied with juggling all possible worst-case scenarios. There is no rest and joy is impossible.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When I hand over my fears in prayer to God, remembering all the times He has provided and guided and brought good out of evil &#8211; then I get re-centered on the very foundation of my life: a good, powerful, and loving Father.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Only then do I experience the peace that would have defied rational explanation just moments before.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I am free to rejoice again.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>4Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!\u00a05Let your gentleness be apparent to all. The Lord is near.\u00a06Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.\u00a07And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10732"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10733,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10732\/revisions\/10733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}