The Fight For RadianceSample

God's Desire for Joy

Although God is not as concerned about your physical beauty as you probably are---He is all about your radiance, reflecting your joy in Him. In fact, joy is such a consistent theme of Christianity, we find it across 40 books of the Bible. Make no mistake about it: God wants His people to rejoice. He desires that we experience that calm delight in who He is and who we are because of Him. He longs for us to have a feeling of confidence that He can be trusted with our lives. It then becomes evident on our very faces.

But did you realize the call to rejoice is more than a mere suggestion; it’s a command? The first mention came through Moses as he received the Law on Mount Sinai. Three times per year God commanded the Israelites to come before Him. Two of these occasions required the people to feast and rejoice before the Lord. They were literally commanded to be joyful (Deuteronomy 16:9-14).

You and I might quickly skip over this commandment, but when the regulations came down from Moses to the Israelites, they likely stumped the multitude. A charge to rejoice and feast before God would have been a paradigm shift from the pagan religious practices of the Canaanites surrounding them. Far from rejoicing, these religions required mutilations of flesh, human blood spilled over alters, and children made to walk through fire–-terrible stuff! What a stark contrast God created by calling His people to be joyful when they came before Him.

We find this commandment to rejoice continued in the New Testament (Romans 12:12; Philippians 3:1). You and I are to be joyful, always. Thanks to the gifting of the Holy Spirit, we are equipped with the joy (1 Thessalonians 1:6). In fact, we have been assured “an inexpressible and glorious joy” (1 Peter 1:8-9)! It’s not something some believers possess and others do not. Again, God is creating a stark contrast between His people and everyone else.

Except…when we are not always rejoicing. Many of us don’t look or act like we have been equipped with “an inexpressible and glorious joy.” Too many lack radiance.

It’s as if we are resembling more closely the believers Paul confronted in Galatians (4:15) where he asked:

"What has happened to all of your joy?"

Could it be, we didn’t realize we would need to fight for it?

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