Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body. 1 Corinthians 6:19–20 (NLT) Have you ever tried to be happy when you’re experiencing a lot of physical pain or discomfort? It’s not easy! Poor physical health creates a real drain on happiness. It’s still possible to have a deep sense of joy when you’re fighting sickness, but no one enjoys feeling badly. Yesterday we covered the first of three things we all need to remember to focus on if we want to live joy-filled lives. Today we will discuss …

Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Matthew 22:37–39 (NLT) Over the past two days, we’ve talked about developing the ability to live in multiple worlds to experience a life of joy. With all that is going on in your life, you can’t afford to focus only on one thing. We all need to develop the ability to focus on multiple things to experience joy and balance in every area of life. If you focus only on your career, you may move up the ladder, but your social life will be lacking. If all you focus on is your …

Sympathize with each other. Love each other as brothers and sisters. Be tenderhearted, and keep a humble attitude. 1 Peter 3:8 (NLT) As a dad and a husband, I’ve learned how important it is to connect with my wife and my kids. A busy schedule can easily draw my attention away, but I consciously work at living in each of their worlds. I’m not perfect, but I make the effort to understand their unique challenges and celebrate their wins. At first, this wasn’t easy. When I worked in emergency rescue, my world included attending to suicide calls, accidents with multiple casualties and victims of brutal violence. Because the daily problems I witnessed seemed so big, I struggled to identify with my wife when she shared …

Laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy; share tears when they’re down. Romans 12:14–16 (MSG) As a pastor, I’ve delivered many Father’s Day messages. I’ve talked about how important fathers are, but today I’d like to do something different. I’d like to share one of the most important things I focus on personally as a father—learning to live in multiple worlds. I want to be clear that I don’t do this perfectly. In fact, I work on it every day, even now as the dad of five adult kids. Like many of us, I can tend to get wrapped up in my world—the problems I’m facing and the goals I’m trying to achieve. But every member of my family has his or her own …

Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:31–32  (NLT) There are skills you need to build if you want to experience a joy-filled life. When I mention joy, I’m not talking about excitement. You can be an excitement junkie and live for the adrenalin rush, but joy is deeper. It’s the deep-seated feeling of contentment you can experience when your head hits the pillow at night—even when nothing particularly good happened that day. It’s the anticipation you can have when getting up in the morning, even when you have nothing exciting to look forward to in your schedule. We …