What brings you joy? A beautiful sunset? A grandson excelling at his sport? A conflict resolved? Listening to beautiful music on a quiet morning? A trip to Graeters’ ice cream? A project completed? The smile of a baby? What’s on your list?
Indeed these events and many other happenings bring joy to our hearts. They bring pleasure, relief, or pride. However, these same things bring joy to non-believers as well. So how do we describe the kind of JOY the Holy Spirit gives us?
Let’s consider how David found joy in God’s presence.
You have made known to me the path of life. You will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasure at your right hand. Psalm 16:11
David spent many days on the hillside with his sheep or running from King Saul or fighting great battles, but in those quiet times, he found joy in God’s presence.
John reminds us of Jesus’ metaphor that He is the vine, we are the branches. He also said we must love each other as He has loved us.
“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” John 15:11
How do we have that kind of complete joy? By staying connected to the vine. The Holy Spirit draws up the “joy nourishment” from the roots of Jesus’ sacrifice for us, shoots them through the vine and into each of our branches.
Sometimes our branches get pretty saggy and limp, but as we draw near to Him, He pumps up our branches with “joy juice”—complete joy.
In the next chapter, Jesus tells his disciples,
“Until now you have not asked of anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.” John 16:24
Remember, Spirit joy is not the joy the world gives, nice as that may be, it is a kind of inner joy that sustains us; a joy that gives us strength and a joy-song in our hearts.
The Lord is my strength and my song. Psalm 118:14
That vesrse is on one of my favorite tea cups. With joy on my mind this morning, I thought, “Yes, that’s it! Joy is like the strength of the Lord working in me and giving me a song.”
Paul says in Acts that even when they were persecuted, they were “filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.”
This week, I pray you will stay well connected to the vine, so that your branch will be plumped up with rich joy nourishment and that you will find completeness and strength and a song!
~ Joyce ~