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Growing Joy June 14 Devotional

by David Joynt on June 14, 2023


PHILIPPIANS 4:5 | 5 Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.

 

MATTHEW 28:20b | 20b And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

 

We can rejoice that the Lord is near even when we can’t sense Him, because He has promised to be with us. Many things can block our sense of God’s presence, including physical pain, distractedness, anxiety, and also attitudes and emotions contrary to His will. We can easily get in our own way! Yet, none of these things alter the reality that the Lord is near. My feelings don’t determine His proximity—and that is a source of joy!

 

Rejoice, right now, that the Lord is near to you.

 

 

Gracious God,

Give me convictions stronger than my feelings, and joy practices that shape my emotions and overcome my fears and anxiety. Thank You for being near!

Amen.

 

About the Author
David Joynt

Dave Joynt began his service as a pastor at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona in September 2014. This meant a move away from the Northeast, where he has a long history, growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and then serving congregations in Delaware and New Jersey for a total of 23 years.

Dave was nurtured in a great church in Bethlehem where his parents, Anne and Carey, served as elders. He graduated in classics from Lehigh University where his Father taught, and then from Oxford, where he met his wife Julia. Ordained in 1988, he completed a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

He and Julia have a son, Tristan, and a daughter, Madeleine.

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