Rejoice in the Lord...

Phil 4:4

   Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice! (emphasis added)

 Always means "at all points in time" . The term comes from the words all and ways, meaning that something is happening and will do so eternally.

 There is a time for everything. Ecclesiastes 3 tells us this. A time to laugh, cry, mourn, dance. But joy is for all points in time, not some. It doesn’t say that there is a time for joy, because we are called to be joyful always, at all times.  

Why is that command so hard to obey? Why do we accept joylessness and write it off as a bad day? The devil comes to steal our joy everyday and we as John Piper puts it, must fight for our joy.  But why is joy so important, why would Paul repeat the command? I think Charles Spurgeon was right on the money with this:

o   Holy joy will oil the wheels of your life's machinery. Holy joy will strengthen you for your daily labour..  Holy joy will beautify you, and, as I have already said, give you an influence over the lives of others. If you cannot speak the gospel, live the gospel by your cheerfulness; for what is the gospel? Glad tidings of great joy; and you who believe it must show by its effect upon you that it is glad tidings of great joy to you. Let us sing unto the Lord as long as we live; and, mayhap, some weary sinner, who has discovered the emptiness of sinful pleasure, will say to himself, "Why, after all, there must be something real about the lives of these Christians; let me go and learn how I may have it."