"Admonished to REJOICE!" Phil. 4:4 Paul wrote this letter free of rebuke and full of loving-kindness from him Roman imprisonment the first time. He had pleasure that Christ was being preached and he also encouraged the church doctrinally! Amidst being in prison he speaks and says rejoice always rejoice! We live in a troubled world right now and it is fret with circumstances YET the Word of God come to us and says to us "YOU must rejoice!!!" We must be FULL of JOY!
When: ALWAYS! A problem for us, but Paul says always and in ALL things! We often adopt worldly philosophy and base happiness on EXTERNAL circumstances or things....a superficial and carnal happiness. We however, are very different from the world with joy (though we often times sinfully adopt the world's philosophy also.) Circumstances in life affect us in life, but Paul wants us to go deeper and to look underneath those circumstances! The child of God has the joy of his salvation in Jesus Christ his Lord! Paul is in prison mind you and yet he writes "rejoice!" He had a life of many infirmities and yet he writes these very words!
What: We too can all talk about circumstances and difficulties, yet we do not dare tell our story next to the life of the Apostle Paul's life. Yet...sometimes we are discouraged like Job with the things in life...in our lives. Paul says "rejoice in the Lord!" There is no other joy and in Him we rejoice. He is our Master, our Redeemer, Savior and we have fellowship in Him, we have the forgiveness of our sins, and in His dying and resurrection we have our assurance of resurrection. It is ALWAYS in the fellowship with the Lord! The problem is that our circumstances in life we put Christ in the background as if He is not there or we think He has forgotten us? That He is not in control....do we behave like this? Where can I go where God's hand is not above and beneath us? He works all things out for us whether we see it or not and we can and must rejoice in all things! The "grass is always greener on the other side?" Shame on us!! There are many examples of this too in Scripture.
Eschatological: When we put things out of focus we grieve the Spirit and we ROB ourselves of this joy! When all things seem to be against us we better rejoice! We have to look beyond the circumstances and see that God deals with His people eschatologicaly (how they will be used to our benefit in the END.) Life is very short and we are often caught up in the busyness of it while we should have our eyes fixed on the end.
Rejoice in God as through the circumstances of life He brings you and I into glory! Rejoice and be glas in this life as it is but a prelude to heaven...and an endless life evermore!!!