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Spiritual Serenity

Joy
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.” (Gal. 5:22-23)


     The joy we have in Christ has the ability to carry us beyond the trials and troubles we face.  The love that is God (1 John 4:8) arms us for triumph and gives us this joy. Joy is a spiritual serenity much higher that any emotional state of euphoria and is more satisfying than the selfish heart knows. This joy can only be found in Christ. We see Christ exhibit this joy during his death, burial, and resurrection.  This joy we are to have is what caused Christ to endure (Heb. 12:2). He endured the cross and its shame. Not the glorified haloed object we cling to and ornate our homes with, but the cruel instrument of torture. A means of death and humiliation reserved for the most vile and lowest criminals. It was meant to punish and disgrace its victims. There was no honor found in death by the cross. Yet “ …,who for the joy that that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Heb. 12:2).  There is no grief like that of Christ rejection and His crucifixion. There is no equal joy to that of Christ resurrection and reigning. So let us run the race before us with endurance setting aside the sins that plague our lives. Let us look to Jesus who founded and perfected our faith. This joy that should permeate from us is found in Christ.  This is joy that we in fact have been saved, we are His, and we have a promise. These things, as long as we are in Him, cannot be 
removed from us. 

    However this joy is received in love that is found in Christ bound in the love that is from God. This joy is the pleasure of love that is satisfied in those it loves. Christ promised this fulfillment in John 15:8-11. We see in John 15:10 that this love is bound in keeping Christ commandments. Not in just any old way are we to keep these commandments, but as Christ has kept His Father’s.  Christ abides in the love of His Father because Christ kept His Father’s commandants.  Christ did not stray from the commandments even if that meant death on the cross. Jesus speaks of this commandment keeping because of the love we have for Him in John 14:15. Let us do likewise, so that we may have the joy that Christ had. Christ could endure the cross for the joy set before Him.  This is not a new understanding by any means. John 15:11 Jesus says “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.” This takes the joy promised by the Lord, found in Him, to a plane far beyond our worldly since of happy ecstasy.  

   We are to be joyful in patience and endurance (Col.1:11). Not just any kind of joy but the sincerity of joy in trials. Not that we enjoy those trials but that we gain strength when we overcome them (James 1:2-4). The understanding is that our faith is perfected through such trials. So we can be joyous for the trials we face are preparing us for the long awaited coming of Christ.  The joy we have arises from the pardoning of sins and the love of God that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. (2 Cor. 8:1-2 & Romans 5:8). Let us not grow weary and demean the joy that comes from obeying the gospel. Let us not down play the joy we have in Christ because the world seems to be too dense with alternate more sensational pleasure. As we hold fast to the Word let us hold true to the joy we have. 

  Luke 2:10 shows us, as an angle had announced to the shepherds, that joy was to come through Christ to all. We must remember the key to behind all of this joy is Christ. Eph. 1:3 lets us know that through Christ and in Christ alone can we receive such blessings.  Christ wants us to obey His commands and do it joyfully. For we have a reason to obey. We have a reason to be joyful. That reason is Christ. 

    Walk as He walked abiding in Him, keepers of His word, and letting the love of God be perfected in us (1 John 2:4-6). As we know life is short and the way seems long. Let us have the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen every day (Heb. 11:1). Pleasing and obeying God with such a faith live joyful in Christ all your days (Heb. 11:6,8).

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