The
calling to “rejoice in the Lord”
would not then be a burdensome rule to keep with wearisome effort, but an
invitation, a joyful reminder, to look at where we are, and whom we are in, and
let our hearts rejoice in him.
This
is in contrast to the other options. If we look at ourselves for reasons to
rejoice, either we admit that we have none, or we fall into prideful,
self-centered ideas that give pseudo-pleasures that simply do not last. If we
look at the world around us for reasons to rejoice, either we see that there
are none, or we fabricate mirages of joy that disappear as quickly as we
approach them. If we look at people to give us joy, we discover that they are
so lacking joy that they want us to make them happy as much as our emptiness of
joy makes us wish they could make us happy.
And
then we meet Jesus and hear him telling us that the experience of his words
will full us up with his fullness of joy so that our joy is filled to the max.
What is that really like?
Have
you ever been in a setting where someone is so overjoyed at something to do
with Jesus that his or her joy is literally contagious? Now, picture yourself
inside perfect, infinite, eternal joy. Imagine yourself inside of Jesus and his
joy, as though his very joy was the breath you breathed, the pressure of the
air around you that keeps you who you are in him.
Now
listen to Jesus speaking to you from his word while you are in his joy. What
would his word sound like? What would happen to you if you heard him speaking
to you from his joy, for your joy? What would happen to your desire to meet
with him before the day begins, or at the end of a busy day, if you knew that
you were entering the one who in his “presence there is fullness of joy”, and
at his “right hand are pleasures
forevermore”?[3]
Add to this
that it is Jesus who initiates your experience of joy, working to convince you
that you could be as joyful as he is. He initiated speaking to his disciples,
knowing that from his words they would come to have faith,[4] and
from their experience of faith in him and his words they would come to have
joy, and, when they knew his joy, their own joy would be brought up to the
fullness he designed into us by making us in his own image and likeness in the
first place.[5]
Back in my
younger years, it was common to hear people say that God just wants people to
be unhappy, or that following Jesus is a joy-killer. Those who receive Jesus’
words know that it is quite the opposite, that he is actually the Joyful One
who brings our joy to fullness in him.
Now, let’s try
this again: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again
I will say, rejoice.”[6]
From my heart,
Monte
© 2013 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517,
Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted,
Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good
News Publishers.)
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