Thursday – Living Joy
How does one live out of the joy of Christ? The answer to this question is always personal. So the best way to learn this is by hearing how someone else cultivates joy. So here are my three main avenues or paths to joy in Jesus. The three avenues that I use are joy in repentance, joy in Scripture, and joy in purpose.
I go through much of my life aware of my inadequacies, sins, and failings. I never doubt the sense that God is the sovereign worker in my heart and life, because I know I do not deserve it. In fact, the best days are those when I come to the end of my gifts, talents, and ideas, there is this unlimited supply of grace that fills me with joy. I may say something harsh or forget something meaningful to those I love, but come back again to the beautiful fact that “it is not about me, it is about Jesus.” There is no other joy than knowing that my failure or my sin can be an avenue of God’s joy in my life. I confess it and look away from it to God’s work in Christ’s death, and there know that the power is his, as well as the glory. There is joy in repentance, so bringing my sin to the Lord quickly even when they are just thoughts of anger, resentment or exasperation. I can own it before the Lord. When I mentally put that on Jesus, I feel that weight of failure off of me. It is an experience of deliverance that frees me. So Confess your sins to God that you have done or that you want to do in your heart.
While I continue to confess and turn away from the daily sins and idolatries, I find that much of my thinking was geared around me finding joy in something else besides Jesus. Whether its football, coffee, music, exercise, family, future planning, or being liked and admired, these distractions never satisfy the need for true joy. So I try to take some time and get myself “happy in the Scriptures” regularly. I read Scripture all the time, but this is a reading that searches for food for me. If a verse or two strikes me while I read, I write something about it as to why it jumped out to me. Then, I go from the verse to prayer. Praying the Scripture to the Lord. Whether its relief or conviction, my heart finds joy in what the Lord has done for me, is doing for me, and will do for me as his son, a co-heir with Christ.
And finally, I spend sometime every day thinking about why I am here on this planet at this time. Why has God given me the family, community, and church that I have? It is all in the service of his kingdom. So my purpose is to live and share the Gospel of Jesus wherever I can so that Christ might be glorified and I might be transformed. This purpose helps me plow through the monotony of everyday life and leadership always focusing on the larger joy: God’s Kingdom come, his will being done on Earth as it is in heaven. I try to do one task everyday that fulfills the long term vision Jesus has given me for my calling as servant leader. That gives a glow of joy to all the smaller and busy items on my agenda.
I pray that you may take one of these joys and try it yourself today. For example, take a journal or just some paper and write out all the fears and anxieties, all the sin and evil and put in down writing, then burn the paper. Know his joy of repentance. You could read a passage over and over again, and stop and pray over the verse that is standing out to you. Ask God to make this verse joyful and beautiful to you as you go about your day, for the joy of Scripture. And you can pray through your “why am I here?” question with the promises and instructions of Scripture. In this you will be renewed in what Jesus is calling you to be and to do! In all of this take up the challenge of joy today. Pick one and work on it. Then you will see how the God of joy works on you through it.
Blessings, Jerry