OVERCOMERS With the Fruit of the SpiritExemplo

 Be filled… With Joy! 

  In wondering what brought Jesus joy, I find Luke 10:21 most enlightening, “At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, ‘I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.’” It was the way His Father revealed the deep things of God to children, hiding them from the wise and learned that filled Jesus with joy. 

The point, however, is that Jesus was “full of joy through the Holy Spirit,” bursting with a bumper crop of the very same fruit we are bearing in our hearts, in the very same way. His joy was not autonomous, though it could have been — He was very God as a man. Instead His joy came through the Spirit of God as does ours. This Jesus-joy is beyond the world and blossoms even in the face of tragedy, heartbreak, and loss. That is because our joy is also not of this world, nor is it dependent on anything in this world. Instead it is His joy and comes from God. It is a fruit of the Holy Spirit and emerges from that which endures and triumphs beyond time and its ravages.  

God invented joy — God, not comedians. God gave us the faculty to laugh — God, not the entertainment industry. God gave us color and beauty — God, not the Impressionists. Being saved doesn’t mean mustering up enough stamina for a “twice-on-Sundays-in-church” endurance test. No church-service would be an ordeal if Jesus led it. Monotony isn’t a divine innovation. Something is wrong if worship is a yawn — we’re in reverse gear. “Saved” people rejoice! They rejoice in God, in each other, in God’s Word, and in worship. They love the Lord and their redeemed life so much that they rejoice in it all through the Holy Spirit, just as their Lord did… And does still!