Here are some
truths about joy we can ask God to sew into the fabric of our souls. The quotes
are from He Restores My Soul and the rest is me processing it out loud with
you.
1. True Joy is Christ-Centered
“True joy
is so Christ-centered that earthly success can neither add to it or diminish
it.” My earthly success may ebb and flow. But Jesus cemented my heavenly
success. In God’s kingdom, I am clean, and whole. We have access to the Father
and His unlimited love, power and resources.
“Joy marks
the life of a person whose heart belongs exclusively to the Father.” If I lack
joy, my heart is clinging to something other than God.
Christ
“The joy that Spirit-led Christians experience is the very joy of
the indwelling Christ being expressed through their souls.” The fruit of the
spirit is joy. So, Christ is joy and He is one with God, so God is joy too. He
is Immanuel, God who is joy, with me. If my soul is not expressing joy, then my
eyes and heart must be fixed on something other than God.
In
John 17:13, Jesus said, “Father let My followers be filled to the brim and
overflowing with the joy that I possess. I will be in them pouring my own joy in
their hearts.” (According to Jennifer Kennedy Dean, this is how the verse reads
with nuances of the original Greek.) Jesus, who lived in total agreement with
His Father’s will, prayed that I would be filled and overflowing with joy – His
joy. He prayed it for you too.
“Now this is the confidence we have before
Him: Whenever we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know
that He hears whatever we ask, we know that we have what we have asked Him for.”
1 John 5:14-15 HCSB
Jesus asked, therefore, I have it and you do
too.
“The heart that has passed
through crucifixion and is continually sloughing away flesh is able to receive
the river of joy flowing through it. The flesh’s earthbound perspective
interrupts the flow of joy.”
To help me understand this concept, God gave
me a vision of the bayou near my mom’s house. The bayou often gets cluttered
with kudzu vine. This vine takes over, creeping out over the water until even a
canoe would have trouble passing through. On a recent visit home, mom pointed
out that the neighbors cleared the kudzu and the bayou was once again a
beautiful body of water.
When I keep my eyes on things of this earth –
what is wrong, what is missing, and the what-ifs, I choke out the river of joy
that is waiting to flow through me. When I apply the real truth – the reality of
God’s kingdom reign in my life, His generous love for me, His abundance to meet
all my needs – I the river of joy is free to flow through me.
Thankfulness
“Joy expresses itself in praise … the spontaneous and
natural outflow of the inflow of His life. When my soul is satisfied as if it
had feasted on the richest of foods, when my soul is flooded with His life, the
praise spills over.” (See Psalm 63:5)
I’ve learned to start praising God
with songs when I am feeling low. Sometimes I just have to listen to them and
say, “yes” in my heart to the truth I am hearing. If I remain in an atmosphere
of praise for at least 15 to 30 minutes, my heart catches up to the reality of
joy (Sometimes it takes hours). Eventually, I feel refreshed by the Truth and I
can begin to speak the praise with my mouth. I intentionally allowed my soul to
feast on what is pure, lovely, commendable, excellent and worthy of praise.
(Philippians 4:8)
How do you combat the blues and intentionally pursue
the joy of Jesus?
Because God has set “eternity in the
hearts of men,” nothing less than eternity – nothing temporal – will satisfy.”
Ecclesiastes 3:11
We were created for a world ruled by God. We do not
physically live there — yet. So we should expect longings for more. We need to
trust that it will come and rely on God’s Spirit of perseverance to enable us to
wait for that day. Until then, we fight the battle against our sinful natures to
be vessels of joy – unhindered by the desires of our flesh.
“God’s says, ‘I will fill the
soul of the priests with abundance, and My people shall be satisfied with my
goodness.’ (Jeremiah 31:14) The word translated “fill” means to “saturate.” He
will saturate our souls (we are priests according to 1 Peter 2:5,9) with His
abundance and it will satisfy us. His abundance will satiate that soul-craving
that is born in us.”
I had an amazing encounter with God while studying
this material. I was meditating on the description of God as the “river of
life.” Then, in my mind, Jesus and I were standing together at this river. He
pointed to the river and said to me, “All of this, the abundance of life God has
to give is yours. I made sure you had access to it. You now have my
righteousness and my name, Jennifer, so you have access to all the spiritual
blessings that flow from God, the river of life.”
Can you see yourself
there at the river with Jesus? Can you see the river teeming with life? It is
packed with the life that resurrects, the life that restores, the life that
fills in the gaps for our weaknesses.
[written by Jennifer O.
White]
