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Enjoy Lifeby Steve Cox,
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Do you find some of the instructions you are given on how to live the Christian life more difficult, or more frustrating, to follow than some other instructions? I certainly do. One of these areas of difficulty for me is joy. I have listened to a number of speakers over the years challenge us to be filled with joy. And many times these speakers have said: “If you are filled with joy, please notify your face.” In other words, their implication is that we should always be smiling, or at least visibly joyful in some way. One of the reasons this has been so frustrating for me is that I was raised in a fairly stoic family. We were trained to not have our emotions show on our faces. I can be joyful or sad and not look much different on the outside. Certainly, there is truth to these speaker’s challenges to be filled with joy and to make it evident to others. But their challenges usually make me feel guilty more than anything else. So lately, I have been trying to understand more clearly how the Lord wants us to live in relation to joy. In the small group I have been attending on Sunday nights, we are learning from John Piper’s material incorporated into his book Desiring God. His thoughts on joy in this material are quite challenging. Piper describes his personal mission statement as: “To spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ.” He stresses that God wants us to be full of joy, and that God has made us to be people who desire to pursue our own happiness. The problem is that we tend to pursue happiness from the wrong sources and for the wrong reasons. And often as Christians, we feel it is wrong for us to pursue our own happiness because we feel this must be selfish and wrong. Piper agrees with the biblical teaching that one of the primary purposes of our life on this earth is to glorify God (I Corinthians 10:31). He states: “Until God’s glory is centered in your mind and affections, all the planets in your life will be out of orbit. Therefore, our first task is to be radically God-centered.” We often see our joy, or satisfaction, in competition with God’s glory. In other words, we often feel we have to deny our own wishes and desires, to be unhappy, in order to do what pleases and glorifies God. But, Piper argues, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” God wants us to be happy, joyful, satisfied, delighted, or whatever you want to call it. The challenge is that we have to shift our focus to making God not only the center of our life, but in some sense, everything in our life, all that matters. As we grow in being “radically God-centered”, as Jesus demonstrated, then what God desires becomes our desires, and what makes Him happy makes us happy. I’m not saying I have this all figured out, but I am working on it. Another way of putting it is that God made me and has a plan for me (Jeremiah 29:11-13). The more I foster a deep relationship with God, and the more I let Him transform me so that His desires become my desires, the more I will experience the joy He intends for me. In Acts 5, as the apostles face a threat from the Jewish ruling council, we are told “They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.” The apostles response to these events has always caught my attention, because a flogging does not seem to be a reason for joy, in my typical thinking. But the apostles had learned to live in a way many of us still have not learned. Peter puts it this way: “Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” (I Peter 1:8-9) May we all learn to live in “inexpressible and glorious joy”
as we grow deeper in our relationship with the Lord and let Him transform
us so that His desires become our desires.
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