Rejoice Always

Philippians 4:4 "Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!"

The keyword in this sentence is always.Unless there's some other version of the word that means 'Only when you feel like it', that means every moment of every day of our lives. No wiggle room. If we're spending our time being worried, depressed, angry, etc., we're not always rejoicing. When Paul wrote this, he wasn't sitting comfortably in some fancy house. He was in prison, tied to a guard, knowing any day he could have is head cut off. If Paul can rejoice in that, we can rejoice when our car breaks down, or things don't go as we planned, or some other small thing happens.

The beginning of Philippians 4:6 reads "Be anxious for nothing..."
We have NOTHING to be worried about:
Matthew 6:26 "Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?"
Matthew 6:34 "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about it's own things. Sufficient for the day is it's own trouble."
We can't be worrying about all these small problems. They are minor and insignificant to God! If we're faithful to him, he'll take care of us, even when things look bad. We just have to keep rejoicing, always!

So how do we keep ourselves rejoicing instead of looking at the negative side?
Philippians 4:8 "Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy-meditate on these things"
We need to always keep our mind focused on good, pure things, and we'll keep rejoicing. If we're thinking negative thoughts, we'll be in a negative mood.