The Fight For RadianceIsampula

Guard Your Life Against Joy-Stealers

Among my eight children, there is usually an “Instigator.” You know the type. It’s the one responsible for today’s episode of mischief and mayhem. Sometimes it involves scheming to convince me they need to go somewhere. Or they rally the crew to join him or her in some adventure. Most of the time, the sole desire of the Strange Instigator is to distract the sibling troops long enough to serve their own purposes.

The same mischief and mayhem is happening in your life when it comes to joy and becoming more radiant in Christ. Jesus provided a parable (Mark 4:19) to help communicate the reality of what happens when good seed (the Word) is planted in good soil (a believing heart) and begins to grow up in the midst of thorns (mischief and mayhem). Even though the seed is good, and it is planted where it can take root in the ground, it is choked out because of the thorns stealing the nourishment and landscape meant for the crop.

Jesus then gets specific as to what areas to guard against. If these thorns are powerful enough to render a believer fruitless, they can certainly steal your joy. Let’s wise up and take our cues from Christ. Here are three Joy-Stealers to guard against:

• Cares and anxieties of this world. This message related to the poor and hard-working class, focused on making a life for themselves and their families. They were to stop spending their time and energy striving.
• Pleasures and the deceitfulness of riches. Instead of using their riches for furthering the Kingdom, the wealthy believers were squandering their lives with indulgence.
• Cravings and passionate desire for other things. This description encompassed everyone else dissatisfied—longing for more of the world, rather than looking toward Christ.

All three represent distractions. Even if the plant can survive this consuming environment, it doesn’t yield anything more than a joyless existence! But it doesn’t have to be this way!

How do we guard against Joy-Stealers in the fight for radiance?

• • We must recognize what it is occupying our thoughts, sucking the life out of us– and stop supplying it with brain time.
• • Beg God to show us what really matters: with our time, our money, our pursuits.
• • Ask Him to make His desires our desires.
• • Pray like you’re sleeping with your gloves on. The fight FOR radiance AGAINST Joy-Stealers is relentless!