Joy in Christian Life
This blog post has been a while in coming, I have had at the back of my head for a while that I haven’t blogged in a long time, but couldn’t think of anything to blog, but last night, whilst working, my mind went of on a train of thought, triggered by thinking ahead to Sunday.
So what I hear you say. Whats the big deal about Sunday? Well on Sunday our Church (Castlereagh Baptist Church) is having a baptism service, where one of my good friends is getting baptised (being Baptist, we believe in full immersion, on profession of faith, known as believers baptism). Again, so what makes you blog about baptism, or as the title is saying, joy?
Well this was my train of thought. As I pondered Sunday night, I thought back to my own baptism, almost five years ago and looked back at it with fond memory. It was a really good time for me, I was close to the Lord, and had obeyed His command in Scripture (Mark 16:16, Acts 2:38 and many other verses), followed His example, and the feeling of joy, and excitement and achievement was something special. I know from talking to many other friends who have been baptized, that they look back on the experience in a similar way, and it set my mind wondering why is it that we look back on that one experience with such joy, with such gladness?
Well to me, baptism is an outward and public showing of the change that has occurred inside, saying that we have died with Christ and been raised with Him to live a new life, under instruction from Christ from God’s word. So as I thought through this, it struck me why it is looked back with fondness by many (if not all I am sure), we were obedient to Christ.
The Bible’s teaching regarding baptism, is clear that it should happen, (the method of which you can debate with me another time) and so when we obey that, we will have made a pleasing decision to God, and we will be filled with a certain aspect of joy. But why is it that we are not always joyful as Christians? Why is it that our life is not always a happy one, in good times and the bad? Is there maybe a lack of obedience? You see when I looked back at times when I was full of joy, at some of my most happiest times, it was at times when I was obeying God. Obedience to God’s word will bring joy in our Christian life. yes we may be sorrowful for some reason, but if we are still obeying God, there will be a joy there that we cannot maybe fathom or explain.
So it lead me to ask myself the question, why am I not joyful every day? Is there a lack of obedience to God’s word? Is there a lack of reading God’s word to actually find out what I am being asked to obey? Is the joy of past experiences sucked out of me due to lack of obedience now. What areas of my life am I not being obedient to?
Obedience isn’t always easy, in fact it may mean a lot of pain and heartache as we root out a sin, or problem that is starving us our spiritual joy. But if we take our faith seriously, if we want to have that joy from God, then we got to obey even when it will hurt us humanly speaking. The Bible is easy to understand ( a bog post by supersimbo lately) highlights the easiness to understand the Bible, but also our reluctance to obey and take it at its word. Maybe if we looked at the Bible in a positive way, and now a restrictive way, and see that God wants to fill us with His joy as we obey Him maybe our lifes will be more joyful.
So what? Baptism brought me great joy, as on that day I followed a command of the Lord, I took my stand, I was identified with Christ. Maybe today I need to make that stand again with friends, tell someone of the gospel, weed out a sin that I have been shown through His word that needs to go…maybe I just need to obey, and maybe, infact likely, I’ll get joy out of doing so.
thanks for the mention
great post also
Cheers, no probs for the mention, regular reader at your site, don’t do enough blogging or commenting though!
ah cool, thanks for reading
Good to see/ hear your thoughts.
I’m new to blogging so hope this makes sense…..
some thoughts…..
Joy is certainly a mystery.
(It can present in different ways… as peace, contentment, as well as the usual ‘happiness’ we usually associate with joy.)
Yes, we know what it means to be joyous
and yes we can have moments of joy,
but the real JOY we will experience through Christ will be in full when we are with Him in full.
I know there are days when we seem to have peace and joy in abundance- usually in the good times (although it is possible to have joy and peace in the most awful of times).
Unfortunately we lack consistency.
We do get absorbed by things outside of ourselves, inside of ourselves and most definitely by things that are not of CHrist.
Oh if only all our moments and days were fixed on Him.
Honesty requires us to say that at best we desire this…. and will reach for His hand in all we do.
Jesus can and does supply us with Joy in our hearts and lives (I experienced a glorious sense of joy even as I watched a much loved one leave this life. Not easily describable. But as the song writer says Jesus and His ways are often ‘undescribable’).
I’m glad that my JOY in Him is not just down to my obedience though, but down to His graciousness despite my general disobedience.
just a thought
see you sunday
Indeed, our joy will be complete once in glory, and what a day that will be. I, to am glad my joy is not fully obedience based, and maybe that is something that I have not made clear in that post. But as I thought of this, we forgo a portion of joy, by knowingly disobeying, and we could get back some of the joy that we miss out on by being more obedient in the things that we know from His Word that we are willingly and knowingly disobeying in Him. The joy of the victory over this, and the joy of knowing that we are right with God, will be added to the joy we already have in Him making us more joyous people. As the children’s chorus “Obedience” says…when being obedient “joy you will receive.”
Hope that makes sense!