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JOY IN THE MIDST
In the midst of your daily living, do you want pure JOY from GOD flowing into all of your being?
I cannot, frankly, imagine any thinking person honestly answering “No” to that question.
Jesus told us that His Joy would remain in us!
The Co-Creator with God Who made all things, was filled with Joy that He wanted to share.
John 1:2-4 NKJV 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
Jesus has such life, light, and joy, and He wants to give them to us.
Nehemiah 8:10 tells us that…”the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
God has put His Joy in us to empower us to serve Him by serving others. We, then, let the love of God flow through us to others.
Human joy, however, lasts for just a brief spark. Our car will shortly run out of gas, so to speak. God’s JOY fuels us for eternity. It is fueled by God, not man.
Psalms 16:11 NKJV You will show me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
We look around at this world and we see good and evil, pleasant things and things of horror.
Yet, when we believe in Christ, seek forgiveness through His death on the cross, and confess to God our sins, we have salvation.
Now we must CONTINUE to OBEY Christ.
When we continue to obey Him, we are truly His. We are not merely calling Him “Lord,” but obeying and following Him to express our love.
You remember the words of Jesus where He tells us in Matthew 7:21, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.”
Thus, love and joy become a part of us.
It is in the presence of Jesus that we find fullness of joy. It is only at His Hand, beside Him, with Him living with and in us, that we find true pleasures forever.
The Holy Spirit is the third part of the Trinity. It is the Love of God, that He will send us when we ask.
When our sins are poured out and we are forgiven, we do not want to continue walking around as we were in the past.
Soon we would find more sin in our lives and would be living again, as we had been.
Instead, if we ask for the Holy Spirit to enfill us, the Love of God will guide and direct us, and will Comfort us as we live each day.
The Holy Spirit is the third part of the Trinity, the Love of God, that He will send us when we ask. The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit are One. All Three are God.
The old illustration of ice, water, and steam all being H2O is true.
I am a wife, a mother, a grandmother, yet the same person. Each part of who I am has certain “work” that is carried out.
As I used to teach my third graders in Sunday School, this is what we see with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
John 15:11 NKJV 11 “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.
Christ wants to put this JOY in us that our joy might be FULL and complete.
It is a powerful and holy gift from God to us. It will change us forever, in more profound ways than can be expressed.
John 13:35 NKJV 35 By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
With such love and joy within us, it will soon become obvious to all those around us, that we are Christ’s disciples.
The JOY and LOVE of Jesus will overflow in our lives and flow out to those around us. Love, and the joy it brings, define us as Christ-followers.
Let us take this joy, so freely given, and USE it to share Jesus with those around us.
May God help you as you share HIS JOY and LOVE with your neighbor today.