Take Joy in Christ!

There's a proverb that goes, "Never trust a skinny chef." 

Why not? Well, it becomes clear after a moment—if the chef doesn't appear to eat the fruits of his labor, then there's no reason for you to believe that his fruits are any good. Why should you take the risk for something that won't benefit you? 

It's similar with the Christian walk. We're called to shine out the glory and grace of God with all our might, and to walk in a manner worthy of our calling. So often, we take that to mean that we need to walk with purity and holiness—and we should. But there's another side to that command.

Walking worthy of our calling isn't walking to show people that we're worthy of the calling. It's walking so that people can see that the calling is worthy.

 

What do people desire most? Happiness. What is the only way to gain happiness? Well, fellowship in Christ—one of the fruits of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5, after all, is joy. Evangelism is the act of Christians trying to share that joy with others; it would be a poor message, after all, if all it brought was shame and self-hatred. 

If you're trying to share the joy that comes with a relationship with God, should you try to smother that joy when it comes to talking with unbelievers? Your goal is holiness, and you're trying to glorify God and point to his truth. And holiness and purity certainly should be cultivated and earnestly sought after; it also wouldn't be an effective witness for Christ if his servants didn't care about Christ's commandments. 

But a primary part of Christianity is happiness. In God is our true fulfillment, our true love; Jesus Christ suffered horrible grief and sorrow to make us able to enter the place of perfect peace and delight; the Holy Spirit works in us every moment of every day (yes, right now!) so that we can grow in joy. It simply doesn't make sense to always seek after holiness, but never seek after the pleasures that God promises. 

The purpose of evangelism is to spread the word of the Gospel. The Gospel is the good news that all this pain we experience on Earth has been done away with forever by the sacrifice of Jesus, and that he invites each and every one of us into the relationship that gives us that joy. And the purpose of our life is evangelism—to go into the nations and make disciples, to bring people into fellowship with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 

Wouldn't it be an effective way to evangelize if people looked at us and wondered what makes us so happy? 

 

"Never trust a skinny chef." Never trust a joyless Christian. If we don't live lives that are full of a clear and obvious joy, then that isn't presenting the full Gospel message—that's hiding our light under a basket. Joy is inherently part of the redeemed soul's life, and it's important that we display it. 

Now, grief is also part of the walk of a Christian. Trials come, and the Christian shouldn't hide every little bit of sorrow out of fear that someone will think Christianity isn't "happy enough". But in those trials, our joy can remain constant—because Jesus is our rock, and he's a rock that can withstand far more than just a little wind. 

My challenge for you today is to have joy in Christ. Enjoy the truth of who he is, and enjoy the relationship you have with him. Pray that others will see that joy, and marvel at it, because no human could ever be so happy. 

And be genuine. The beautiful thing about the Gospel is that your joy is real; it's not empty, and it's certainly not faked. After all, we're Christians for a reason, right? If we really don't delight in what God actually did for us, then maybe we don't understand the Gospel well enough, and need to pray to understand it better. 

God's power is marvelous, and the calling is worthy to walk. It's truly amazing, the change that God has wrought.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Heavens Declare the Glory of God - Iguazu Falls, Brazil

Image
I've had several experiences in my life that make me pause and think: "The heavens really do declare the glory of God." The first was the total solar eclipse of 2017. (Kind of hard to beat the sun being replaced by a black hole.) But visiting the Iguazu Falls on the border of Argentina and Brazil certainly comes close.  Getting to the falls was quite the process. Our whole group piled into the van and drove over the border from Paraguay to Brazil—they didn't check our passports for some reason, so it didn't take too long—and arrived at the Iguazu Falls National Park.  All we had to do then was take a taxi or bus up to the falls themselves. And, despite several transport mishaps (including a taxi driving one group back to Paraguay instead of to the falls by mistake), we made it to Iguazu.  Iguazu Falls is the largest waterfall system in the world. Though it isn't the highest, there are 275 waterfalls on the cliffs—and if you see it in person, the sight goes bey...
Read more

The Praiseworthy Project - 30 Days of Choosing What's Beautiful

Image
At the beginning of August, I decided to try an experiment. The experiment was pretty simple. For 30 days, I wouldn't consume a lot of the secular media that I enjoyed. It was during summer break, and I've been wasting a lot of my time on entertainment—and I wasn't being very careful about what kind of entertainment it was. Why did I do this? Well, because I wanted to see what would happen. My hypothesis was that the passive entertainment that we consume on a daily basis affects us more than we think. We read and watch so many things that aren't necessarily sinful but that aren't from a Christian perspective, and the ideas soak into our brain. I wondered how this affects us. And I wondered what would happen if I did something different. I called it the Praiseworthy Project after Philippians 4:8 – "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellenc...
Read more

Psalm 24 - The Promise of Sanctification

Image
In my Bible reading recently, I read Psalm 24. It's a wonderful psalm full of profound statements about God—that's kind of how the Bible is, actually—but what I didn't realize is that it also contains one of the sweetest of God's promises to us.  I thought I'd go over that promise today with you, so let's take a look at Psalm 24, and how it promises us sanctification.  (You can read Psalm 24 here before we start, or you can follow along with the verses that I've pasted below.)   Verses 1-2 - "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers."  Right away we see God's power displayed. God owns the earth—God made the earth. Nothing in nature is more powerful than the ocean, but God made the seas.  And he also owns every person. "Those who dwell therein"—he made us, and he is the divine author of our stories.  Verses 3-4 -...
Read more