Where’s Your Joy?
In these days filled with things that have altered our previously comfortable lifestyles, God may be asking, “Where’s your joy?”
Paul, obviously, found the answer to joy in every situation. 2 Corinthians 12:10, “Therefore I am well content with weakness, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”
This is completely the antithesis of what the modern-day Christian proclaims: “Therefore I am well content with strength, with compliments, with comforts, with admiration, with advantages, for Christ’s sake, for when I am strong, then I am happy!
The world is full of people who for the joy of pride’s sake define things well within the parameters of their abilities instead of working hard to rise to the occasion.
There was a newcomer to a certain mountainous area. He was little apprehensive about his neighbors. He noticed on every barn were painted “bull’s eyes.” In the center of every bull’s eye was a mark. One he asked one of his neighbors about it. “Folks around here must be awful good with guns,” he said. “I noticed that every one of these bull’s eyes have a mark in the very center.” The neighbor smiled, “It’s not hard to understand,” he explained. “We draw the circles after we shoot the guns.”
I wonder if the church ever is guilty of doing something and then drawing the bull’s eye circle around it calling it holy? Can the church be at peace, full of joy and content with weaknesses, insults, distresses, persecutions, and difficulties for Christ’s sake? Is it possible for the church to lose sight of the glorious and exciting working of God in the not-so-easy times?
A family had gathered in the den enjoying a magnificent thunderstorm when the mother though of little Dorothy alone in the nursery. She did not want their little daughter to be awakened and feel afraid. She slipped out to go quiet her. Pausing at the door, however, in a vivid flash of lightening that illuminated the whole room, she saw the little girl sitting up in bed clapping her hands in excitement and shouting, “Bang it again, God! Bang it again!”
How long has it been since you’ve clapped your hands in excitement at what God was doing – even if it was a stormy thing he was doing? Where’s your joy and to what is it harnessed? Can you in all things give thanks? (1 Thess. 5:18)
Jesus said in John 15, “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. Therese things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.”
Bro. Stephen
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