Joy - Experience Joy This ChristmasSample

What brings us joy: The Holy Spirit

When you turned to God, He put the Holy Spirit in you to give you a new nature. The fruit of that is love, joy, and peace. 

Joy, a fruit of the Holy Spirit, is plastered all over shop windows and school walls all month long in December. These graphics can be great reminders that the character of the Holy Spirit is in us. Fruit is what grows naturally out of something healthy and alive. Given sunlight, water and nutrients, a tree grows fruit. 

Given the Holy Spirit, a person becomes more loving, more joyful and more at peace. What a gift! You don’t need to strive for these fruits, or fake it. If you draw near to God, and let Him work in your life, these things will grow in you! 

If you turn from your natural self and your tendency to worry and be self-focused etc, you will find God changing you from the inside, out. 

To reflect:

1. Reflect on the fruit of the Spirit. Take time to memorise these verses and invite God to bring a new depth of understanding of what they really mean for your life. 

2. If you’ve found yourself striving to be joyful, why not pause today, and invite God, again, to work in you. 

“Holy Spirit, I invite you to take the lead in my life. I surrender to You. Have Your way in me. I invite You to bring Your love, Your joy, Your peace (etc…) into my life. I live by Your law, and not by my changeable moods or temperament, or by the circumstances I find around me today. Thank You for YOUR joy Lord, Amen”.