Filled with Joy
One of the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) that Jesus came to bring us is joy. “I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! (John 15:11, NLT).” I have said many times, “God is the most joyful being in the universe.” And Jesus, as the most joyful being, has come to bring us this incredible joy that he has (“my joy”). The challenge is that we often confuse joy with happiness, when they are not the same thing. Happiness is a temporary euphoria we receive from circumstances in our life, when I receive a gift, when I get a raise, when I have a “good time”. After the experience is over the happy feelings and emotions soon dissipate, and then we go looking for another experience to make us happy (or happier), and another and another, usually needing more stimulus to get the same level of happiness we experienced before. Some have called this the “law of diminishing returns,” the returns on happiness seems to dismiss requiring more and more to get to the same level.
Joy on the other hand is a fruit of God’s Spirit, meaning, it can only be given as a gift from God . And God’s joy fills our heart with an internal gladness because it is from God’s Spirit, God’s presence within us. Which means joy does not leave us as our circumstances change, or when we do not feel happy. I came to this realization when I went on mission trips to Haiti, and saw people who had joy even in the midst of some of the worst living conditions I had ever witnessed. It caused me to ask, “would I have the same joy if I lived in their circumstances?” And my honest answer was, “no”. Because I was more dependent on situational happiness than I was in the joy of the Lord.
To receive joy, we must first have the Holy Spirit living within us. The Bible is clear we do not have the Holy Spirit, until we repent of our sin (literally recognize our sin and turn from it), and believe in the Lord Jesus as God’s Son, the Messiah , who atoned for (or covered) my sin by taking my sin and paying the penalty it when he died on the cross. We are promised that when we take this step of faith, we will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38), and with him come the fruits of love, joy, peace, etc. (Galatians 5:22-23). The first joy we experience is knowing our sins are not held against us, we are free from guilt and shame, and we are in eternal relationship with God.
As Jesus pointed out in John 15, the fullness, or completeness, of joy he wants us to experience happens as we abide in Christ. The more we foster our relationship with Jesus, the more the Spirit cultivates the fruit of joy within us (along with love, peace, kindness, etc.).
How are you cultivating joy?