The Joy of Life
“I delight to do Thy will,
O my God.”
Psalm 40:8
Joy is a signature mark of a life lived in God’s Will. Jesus had but one agenda in life: to bring honour to the Father. His Life within each of us enables us to experience that same delight.
“Then said I, Lo, I come
(in the volume of the book it is written of Me,)
to do Thy will, O God.”
Psalm 40:7; Hebrews 10:7
The outward life always mirrors the inward. The Christ within moves us toward greater fulfillment of the Father’s Will.
“…As My Father hath sent Me,
even so send I you.”
John 20:21
When the people of God rely on positional truths, without the essence of His motivation pressing us to LIVE the Life, we begin to fall into the deception of religion.
“Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of Heaven, but the ones who do the will of My Father in Heaven.”
Matthew 7:21 (LITV)
To confess Him without expressing the life of Him is the folly of religion.
“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only,
deceiving your own selves.”
James 1:26
Joy is the fruit of doing and living in His Will. Religion saps the life and the joy of the Lord within. To live for self, isolated and uninvolved in His purposes for us, is to remove ourselves from the matrix of His joy within. Fulfilling His Will is the wellspring of His Joy.
The Secret of His Joy
remaining (abiding) within us.
“These things have I spoken unto you, that My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is My commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you.”
John 15:11-12
Joy is the fruit borne of those who live and walk in the Spirit of God.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy…
Galatians 5:22
“The Lord gives His people perpetual joy
when they walk in obedience to Him.”
D.L. Moody
“These are the marks of a heart that is living in the joy of the resurrection. It lives out of itself; and living out of itself, by this unselfish joy, it has a joy in itself which comes from the presence of Jesus Christ; the overflow of His peace which passeth all sense, the consciousness of that two-fold relationship— His relation to us, our relation to Him, and our mutual and indissoluble love.”
— Manning
Where there is no inflow,
there can be no outflow.
“The Scriptures teach that the happiness or blessedness of believers in a future life will be greater or less in proportion to the service of Christ in this life. Those who love little, do little; and those who do little, enjoy less.”
– Charles Hodge
“His Master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your Master.”
Matthew 25:21 (ESV)
Related Post: Love, Works and Joy (LINK)
Brian Troxel
