You make known to me the path of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence.
Psalm 16:11a
Joy to the World is such a robust hymn of praise, written in 1719 by Isaac Watts. The more voices singing, the better it sounds. The first hymn of our Christmas church service is always "Joy to the World".
Mr. Watts didn’t intend for Joy to the World to be a Christmas carol. He in fact wrote this song based on Psalm 98. The lyrics were later adapted to what is believed to be music from Handel’s Messiah. This hymn is one of the most sung Christmas carols today.
Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.
This time of year it's easy to lose focus of what's important in all the demands and expectations we sometimes find ourselves in. Remember this easy acronym for JOY, a children's song titled "Jesus and Others and You" written by B. Metzger, 1951.
J - Jesus
O- Others
Y - You
Jesus and others and you
What a wonderful way to spell joy
Jesus and others and you
in the life of each girl and each boy
"J" is for Jesus for He has first place,
"O" is for others you meet face to face,
"Y" is for you, in whatever you do,
Put your self third and spell JOY.
PREVIOUS ADVENT DEVOTION LINKS HERE
Two FREE printables that go with this series. You can find download links here:
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I will be posting this until Christmas here on my blog. You can follow this series your favorite way.
Links are below:
It just occurred to me that you have the busiest month of the year in December by posting the Advent Calendar. Now that is a labor of love! (Most of us, choose to let the blogging and social media slide; at least, I do.) My study is specifically on “path of life.” If it turns up anything interesting, I’ll let you know.
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