January 2025
“Whatever happens, my dear brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. I never get tired of telling you these things, and I do it to safeguard your faith. ”
PHILIPPIANS 3:1 (NLT)
Dear Friend,
As we begin this new year, I’d like to help you make it your best year ever. No, I don’t have a magic formula for weight loss, getting to the gym regularly, or predicting stock market trends.
But I do have something far more valuable. I want to help you develop a mindset (a moment-by-moment perspective) that will produce new and sustaining JOY in your life, regardless of your circumstances.
You can learn, with practice and the power of the Holy Spirit, to REJOICE in the Lord in whatever happens in 2025.
I’ve spent the past 18 months studying and writing a forthcoming book titled I Choose Joy, based on the apostle Paul’s example and teaching in Philippians 1 and the enlightening research on the power of gratitude.
“We’ve been conditioned to believe that joy, happiness, and feelings of well-being are available only when we “have what we want, as much as we want, and when we want it.” Unfortunately, that rarely occurs, and when it does, our short-term rejoicing is replaced with a desire for someone or something that is better, bigger, or different. Stop for a moment and consider the subconscious mindset our culture has created in all of us that drives our ambitions, sabotages our emotions, and creates expectations that are rarely, if ever, fulfilled.
Tim Keller wisely observed, “The sin under all other sins is a lack of joy in Christ.” The command to rejoice in the Lord always, refuse to be anxious about anything, and be thankful in all things are God’s antidote to the greatest emotional, relational, and spiritual maladies of our day (see Philippians 4:4-9; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).
These are not suggestions; they are commands. And every command is given for our benefit so that we might live life according to God’s design and experience the love, joy, and peace Jesus promised. C. S. Lewis was not kidding when he said, “Joy is the serious business of heaven.”
If we think, believe, and make our life choices with a mindset that joy and fulfillment can be found outside our personal, intimate, ongoing relationship with Christ, we have become functioning idolaters and foolish consumers.
How can we possibly explain how the most affluent nation in the world has the highest use of antidepressants, is currently in a mental health crisis with anxiety and depression, is drowning in debt, and is shot through with ingratitude and divisiveness?
The answer is not trying harder, a new president in the White House, losing some weight, or finally finding that right person. Paul’s example in Philippians 1 teaches us that C + P = E (Circumstances + Perspective = our Experience). We control little of our circumstances and 100 percent of our perspective.
There is a reason the words grace, joy, and thankfulness all come from the same Greek root word “charis.” “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1:17, NIV).
You can develop a joyful mindset through daily gratitude!
1. Examine your THINKING.
When you wake up, does your mind gravitate to all the blessings that you have or all the barriers that are confronting you? When you go to bed, do you recount all the good that’s happened in your day or all the problems that you faced?
2. Examine your SPEECH.
Are you positive and grateful or negative and grumbling, whether out loud or in your mind?
These thinking and speech patterns over time develop neuropathways in our brains that determine our perspective, good or bad, and our mindset about everything we experience. As the wisest man on earth stated, “As he thinks within himself, so he is” (Proverbs 23:7, NASB).
We are the product of our ingrained thought patterns, and that is where we must win the battle.
Daily Action Plan for Three Weeks
1. Write out Psalm 103:1-5 on a card and read it slowly first thing when you get up and last thing before you go to sleep.
2. List three specific things you’re thankful for each day after reading the card morning and night. (Writing them down will cause faster retraining of your brain.)
3. List three people you’re thankful for that day after reading the card each morning and night and verbalize what you’re thankful for to at least one of them each day.
Practice these steps for three weeks, and then email me at [email protected] to let me know about the beginning changes in your mind and emotions.
Let’s do this together.
Joyfully expectant,
Chip Ingram
CEO and Teaching Pastor, Living on the Edge
