Joy matters by Dickon Harding
How do you know the joy of the Lord if you don’t know the joy of the Lord?
If you’ve not experienced the joy that comes with a relationship with Jesus how would you know what you’re missing? Often when told, the telling or demonstration thereof can put someone who is yet to believe off and they continue in a their unbelief.
As believers, the life-giving Gospel of Christ crucified moves our hearts, transforming our being into Christlikeness, filling us with the joy of the Lord, compelling us to love righteousness and justice and to walk humbly with our God. This Gospel of life determines how we live, act, and think and leads us to care for the orphans, the widows and the least of these whom our society rejects and dismisses as unworthy.
This good news is so good that we should ensure that it is pervasive in our lives and that it flows out of us as rivers of life, making us as lights in the darkness (individually) or a city on a hill (community), our lives are built on the foundation of Christ the corner stone and we should be held together as living stones by Christ our capstone as we tell and demonstrate they way of the Lord.
If you know and believe in the Gospel of Christ crucified, the gospel is no longer just for you, rather it is to be broadcast across your (the) world in anyway that you can, thus we must continually ask ourselves questions like:
Do we know the Gospel of Christ crucified, that it might continually transform our hearts and being into Christlikeness (sanctification) that we may become lights and rivers of life to a lost and dying world?
Do we know the law of God, that we might strive with the wicked (Prov 28:4) and inform them of the good news of the gospel?
Is the joy of the Lord evident in our lives?
As believers, do we know what we know or are we in a position that we don’t know that we don’t know? The bible admonishes us to join together for worship and to gather together to encourage and support one another. This is not extracurricular activity from our one day on Sunday, it is to be our lives continually and perpetually. Without this encouragement and support, we will become like the fearful servant who knew his masters will, yet hid his talent in a hanky in the ground. God has gifted every believer with a gift(s), a talent or skill, of some sort, that in it’s use, God may be glorified, honoured and praised, that the unbeliever may know what they don’t know and may see with their eyes and perceive, hear with their ears and understand and may bow the knee and say, “Jesus is Lord”. The joy is truly joy when it is shared.