October 16, 2009

• Letter 3 on assurance and fighting for joy (Jesus' desire vs. Satan's desire)

  I originally thought I would be writing two letters as an introduction to some posts about joy, but I think I'm going to continue to write the posts about joy in letter format...You can read my first two letters here and here, and the rest of the letters in the series here).

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  My dear friend in Christ,

  Almost a year ago on Revelife the writer of the post Joyfulness: Selfish or a Necessity? posed the following questions:

  What is joy, and where do you find it? Do you consider yourself a joyful person?

  At the time, I wrote the following as part of a comment I made to the post:

  I've struggled with being joyful and having the joy of the Lord. I don't consider myself a joyful person, but I know that Jesus has told us He has come so our joy might be full. God's joy isn't rooted in our circumstances or in our feelings, but in God Himself.

  After that I was thinking about joy not only because of that post but also since it was also around the time of the Christmas holidays, which for so many people are times that are anything but joyful. (Now I do remember I thought about joy before that time as well; I'd actually printed out lists of verses about joy, but I didn't really find much help in doing that.) And I remember back a few years ago now; that Christmas Day was difficult for me – a loved one was going through a difficult time and I was struggling in a relationship with a friend as well.

  We hear other people sing songs like "Joy to the World!" or "I've Got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy Down in My Heart!" – but we don't feel joyful, we feel anything but joyful...

  We sit in worship services week in week and week out and we can feel miserable. People ask us how we are and many times don't we put on a happy face and hold back the tears and squeak out, "Fine" all the while we feel dry and barren inside? There's no joy to be found. I know you've struggled with joy as well. We've gone to the well and it seems empty. But yet does not God have everlasting joy for us because He has given us everlasting life? The well may look empty to us, but we need to go back again and again – for it is full to overflowing. There is no doubt He will provide water for us to drink until we've finished drinking – just like Rebekah drew water for Isaac and watered each and every one of his camels as well. Enough to slake our thirst. No, no! Not just enough – more than enough. O, but don't we need eyes to see it and then a faith to reach once more into the seemingly empty well, to take the bucket and draw, to taste and see that He is good even in the midst of our darkest and gloomiest days? And then after we draw, when we taste, it's wonderful: for indeed we discover it's not just water, it's new wine, the very best wine! How can it not be? We are His children. We are His sons and daughters. Would He give us anything less but the best? He's throwing a feast for us. Will He not shower down bread from heaven for the one who hungers for Him? Will He not give living water to the one who pants for Him? Has He not told us to open our mouths so He might fill them?

  You know I continue to battle and fight for joy regularly but have begun to see that deep, abiding, sure and steadfast joy is God's gift available to all of us as His children. I'm not talking about a happy-go-lucky joy or a ha-ha! superficial joy, but a joy that cuts through pain and sorrow and hardship, through barrenness and fruitlessness, through broken marriages and prodigal children, through infirmed bodies and confused minds, through dead end jobs and leaking roofs, through dirty diapers and stacks of unfinished school assignments, through betrayals and deaths — a joy that shines and abounds no matter what the circumstances. The joy of the Lord is a joy we can't work up. It is a joy that is a gift from Him, through His Holy Spirit. Is not joy part of the fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5? It doesn't say fruits of the Spirit, it's fruit singular. As we receive the Spirit, we receive all the fruit. And that includes joy.

  I have many things I have been considering about joy. But the one thing today I have been pondering is this: Satan loves a joyless Christian! What kind of witness is a joyless Christian? What kind of worker is a joyless Christian? And more importantly, what kind of child of God is a joyless Christian?

  Remember it is Jesus' desire that His joy might remain in us and our joy might be full! This is Jesus' desire. Have you ever considered joy like that? I've never really thought about it that way before. Is not joy a privilege we have as children of God? Shouldn't we desire to know Him and the fullness of joy He wishes us to have? Is it not to His glory and joy that we be joyful in Him? Jesus' desire! If Jesus desires it, can't we see that Satan will fight against it?

  The bottom line is this: Satan's desire is to snuff out our joy.

  We have to remember that as soon as we are in Christ, Satan becomes our enemy because he is Christ's enemy. And he remains our enemy. The devil is prowling. The thief has come to steal, kill and destroy. And I am coming to see that one of the things he wants to steal is our joy. But yet how can he? He was defeated at Calvary. Though he still seeks to work us woe, he is a defeated foe. So long as we have Christ in us, we have the hope of glory. So long as we have Christ in us, we have the joy of the Lord. We have been made Christ's by grace alone. We are not in Christ because of anything we have done but solely on the merit of Jesus Christ. "Nothing in my hands I bring, only to His cross I cling." We came empty handed to God in the first place and continue to come empty handed. We can add nothing to our salvation: it is complete in our blessed Savior. What joy to know we are secure in Christ, accepted in the Beloved, He is not ashamed of us. We have been born again into God's family, we have a everlasting relationship with the Lord because of His love He set upon us. Our position in Christ is not based on our current circumstances or our feelings or on what others may say about us or how we look or how much money we make or how successful we are or where we live. Our relationship with God is based on His faithfulness, His covenant, His oath, His promises, His shed blood and broken body, His work on our behalf. (That is what I so loved as I read through the book of Hebrews over the past year: all those reminders of Christ's all-sufficient and wonderful work for us! While we were yet helpless and powerless...and today we are just as helpless and powerless apart from the Lord sustaining and undergirding us and strengthening us. If you've not done so lately, go there again, my friend, and read what He has done for you because He chose you to be in Christ. Drink in and rejoice in the work of Christ for you, for us, for the Church! Taste and see that He is good! Is not immersing ourselves in the Scripture one sure way we can fulfill the Biblical command to resist the devil? Let us not submit to our adversary and his lies (why would we ever in our right minds consider making the enemy of our souls an ally?), but rather let us submit to God and gird up the loins of our minds with the beauty of Christ and the joy of our salvation. Is that not the kind of medicine which will help keep the devil at bay so we might continue to rejoice always, as the apostle Paul exhorts us to do. And notice there that Paul tells us there to rejoice in the Lord. How can we not rejoice in the Lord as we continue to reflect upon His love, His mercy, His grace and His goodness poured out for us at the cross of Christ?)

  There's that children's song "This Little Light of Mine" which includes the phrase: "Don't let Satan blow it out." No, he can't blow it out, but yet he can diminish it, he can entangle us so we become anything but joyful, to make us lose sight of Christ in us, yet the joy is still there because the Spirit has come to abide with us forever, because our God has promised to never leave us or forsake us. So let us take heart when Satan is blowing with all his might: True joy is not based on our feelings but on God Himself who has come to dwell in our souls. The light and the fire that dwells within us is not something that comes from one of those trick candles that you can't blow out. The light that dwells in us is no trick or illusion. God has breathed His life into us to raise us from the dead. The last Adam is life-giving spirit. We have Christ's resurrection life indwelling us now. Henry Scougal spoke of true Christianity as being "the life of God in the soul of man." Who can kill the life of God? No one! What can separate us from the life and love of God? Nothing! Who can snatch us from His hand? No one!

  At those times when Satan's winds are whipping against our souls in an attempt to extinguish our joy, may the Lord speak that blessed assurance and joy unspeakable to our souls, and may we do what we can to keep that light burning by considering Jesus and forgetting not God's benefits to us. Is not our Jesus, our joy, too wonderful for words? How does He love us? Could we ever count the ways? As much as we could count the sands on the seashore or the stars in the sky!

  Rejoicing in Him today! How can we not, my friend? We are joined to Him and to one another for eternity, are we not?

  Your sister for eternity because I am His for eternity (as are you!),
  Karen

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