Joy and Peace

[*Living~By~Faith*]

I am studying the fruits of the spirit and am now on joy and peace. I want to study those together because I feel they can go together. Can someone how me to understand what joy is? What it's like to have joy? How it's different then happiness? The same with peace.

[Dani H]

Peace: An inward undisturbedness and calmness that is completely independent of what is happening around me and the circumstances in my life currently. It's an absence of troubledness, a cessation of anxiety or worry or fear or any of these things. It's not a non-feeling either. Just that sense of calm that comes and envelops from within where you know all is well because God is in control and has you right there in palm of His great hand.

Joy: An inward sense of wanting to praise and thank and jubilate at the thought of who God is and what all He has done. Which is again completely independent of what is happening around me or the circumstances in my life currently.

In contrast, happiness is usually dependent on life going just right and things going my way and goals being achieved and desires being granted or being made reality.

Happiness comes and goes.

Joy comes and stays.

[Hunter121]

Hey, this pretty much explains the difference between joy and happiness

http://briancromer.com/2008/04/28/di...and-happiness/

[lovex]

Happiness to me is in the moment. Say you get a really good job, your happy. Say you loose that job, your sad.

With Joy.. it's the fact that You know God is always going to be there. He will never leave you. You are His Child and with that, You are joyful. When your hope or joy is in Christ, You can trust that everything is going to go according to His purpose. We may not like it, but we are confident that He is in control.

Peace to me is what goes on internally. So many of us struggle from worry, anxiety, anger... but with the peace that the Lord gives to us, we turn from that and we are content with any circumstance, any irregularity, and any disturbance in our life because we have Christ.

Sorry... that may not be right, that's just what I've found in searching for Truth.

[lovex]

By the way, it seems like you are seriously growing in your faith with the Lord. I really enjoy seeing all your questions on here, I see a true desire for Him. Never grow weary and continue to pursue Him even when your tired and anxious for answers. Love you friend.

[*Living~By~Faith*]

Thanks for the advice on this so far. It's starting to make some sense now. Can someone point me to some scripture on joy and peace? I'm about to look some up myself, but I may overlook one that would be good to know. Can I also have some examples on having joy and on having peace in certain situations that we are faced with in our daily lives? I feel that having these examples will help me to understand it even more fully.

[Dani H]

I use this site to do word studies and look up verses or passages. They have many translations to choose from along with reading plans, devotionals and many other features. Enjoy!

http://www.biblegateway.com/