Everyone lives his or her life in a pursuit. We may not stop to consider it often but even the most demotivated person you know has an aim for living and is chasing it daily. Some live for comfort and ease so they are proactively engaging their wills and resources to attain that. Others desire accomplishment and success and plainly declare, both with their lips and their lifestyles, that they will sacrifice much in order to experience the thrill of winning. I’m going to submit that most who are young live for fun – leisure, entertainment, pleasure and excitement are the bulls-eyes they seek to hit. The older among us often live for rest – retirement, travel and physical/financial security. We all have a pursuit and the majority of your thoughts, plans, actions and priorities move towards that life-aim even if you’ve never articulated what it is to yourself. I believe I know what mine is and I find it housed in the midst of an incredibly busy life. When quietness and deep thinking find me in undistracted moments I can see what I’m chasing and God has been gracious to afford me more and more of it the longer I pursue. Jesus Christ spoke of it one day when He said,
“These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” – John 15:11 {ESV}
Joy is an interesting commodity. Joy, when one obtains it, resides in the deepest part of who you are and cannot be dislodged through pain or circumstance. The English translation of the bible that I use mentions joy nearly 200 times. Joy is sung about in 36 of the Psalms, the Apostle Paul writes of it in 8 out of the 13 books of the bible he authored, and Jesus mentions joy 16 different times in the four Gospels. Joy is not a peripheral item in the Kingdom of God and I’m hoping that you will join me in seeking it with all your might. Let me caution you not to confuse the substance of joy with the superficiality of happiness. Listen, happiness is not a bad thing but it is fleeting. I have to maintain happiness because it is almost always dependent on what is occurring around me. Joy is different in that it is the powerful result of being rightly related to God. Joy does not need to be intermittently experienced and it never has to be forfeited if one desires to live in intimacy with the Source of his or her joy. Joy is a companion of peace which is the offspring of grace. These invisible, but undeniable, components of the Christian life are among the most precious treasures that result from Christ’s salvation. Joy is yours and provides you strength, hope, soul-rest, and confidence concerning this life and the one to follow. Joy is a pursuit that is worthy of your very best energies. Do you have it? Do you want it?
Joy is not glib or silly. Joy is not manufactured or feigned. Joy is not rooted in possessions or activities. Joy is shared with others but not contingent upon them. Joy is often expressed in holy laughter yet is also valid in silent stillness. Joy is the flag outside the castle of the heart which signals to all that the King is in residence. Joy outlasts tragedy because Christ is greater than pain. Joy constantly promises better things to come and trains your spiritual eyes on destiny’s horizon. Satan seeks to assault your joy but, when his tempests batter you, Heaven’s anthems are alive in your heart and the sounds of threatening thunder are drowned out by joy’s victorious crescendo. Death is not able to rob you of joy – not your death or the death of one whom you love. You see, joy is so powerful that it places limits on what sadness can do to us. Only a detached pretender would tell us that Christians are not subject to experiencing sadness. Yet we do not sorrow as those who have no hope and, before sadness lays lasting claim to our lives, joy speaks up and leads us forward to brighter days. Friends, joy is real and I want to tell you that you don’t need a 1-2-3 formula to attain it. Joy is found in Jesus Christ and in pursuing Him we find our hearts receiving fuller, deeper levels of joy. Jesus is our joy. He doesn’t want us to settle for lesser things on earth because we won’t be offered lesser things in Heaven. When I close my eyes and picture our eternal paradise, the strongest sense that I am left with is that Heaven will be an experience of boundless joy. Here and now, our experience of joy is tethered to our faith but in Heaven our joy will be perfected in that it will be in full accordance with our environment. Nothing resists joy in Heaven and Jesus has placed its seed in our hearts right now through His grace, forgiveness and love. Jesus offers you today the foretaste of the fullness to come. The very fact that we know what is awaiting us as the redeemed of God lavishes lasting fuel on joy’s heart-fire within. It requires faith to believe it true joy available and it also requires surrender to activate it in your life. It’s not far from you. It’s not imaginary. Nothing has changed from the time when Nehemiah declared, “The joy of the Lord is your strength.”
Why settle for anything less?