Joy in the Lord

UV 1279/10,000 Joy in the Lord
Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice: for the LORD will do great things.
Joel 2 v 21

Our fears detract from the joy that the Lord wants to be full. He does great things in us and with us and for u. Not just the mundane or ordinary things that we encounter every day but He does extraordinary acts of grace and mercy in our lives, some of which we are aware of and some of which we are not even aware of. As we increase in awareness of the greatness of God and the things He has done for each of us, our fears will recede, decline or vanish and our gladness and joy will increase. Joy is a lot like double entry bookkeeping. On the one hand, we need to reduce our fears, worries and anxieties and on the other increase in peace, gladness and joy. It is said that the expression, “ Fear not” occurs 365 times in the Bible, once for every day of the year. Every day a new type of fear manifests in our minds. In other words, we need to command ourselves every day of our lives to decrease in fear and increase in joy. Our fears are largely baseless and irrational but our joy is rational and justified for this reason: the Lord, who has done great things for us in the past, will do great things for us this day.

The Lord does things that we cannot think, ask or even imagine. His love is so great. It cannot be held back. His power is so great. It cannot be thwarted or limited. He is the Alpha and the Omega and hence, He will do great things from the beginning of our lives to its end and even beyond. When we meditate on who God really is, it will increase our gladness. Our strength or inner power and grace will be enhanced. The Lord will bring about inner transformation. Instead of being worriers, we will become warriors, prayer warriors for Him. Our prayers will trigger great changes in the visible and invisible world for the Lord delights in answering our deepest sighs and even impossible requests. The Lord will do things that transcend the natural. He will do supernatural deeds or miracles. He does not do these to impress us or to prove He exists but as He wants us to be exceedingly joyful. The uni-verse is put in the future tense, “ the Lord will…” implying that whatever great things He has done for us till now is only a token of the greater things He is going to do in our lives, for us and with us. “ In us” is grace, “for us” is blessing and “with us” is purpose or destiny. Instead of regretting about the things we could have done or the things we have done wrong, instead of worrying about what can go wrong, instead of entertaining imaginary fears and apprehensions about our future, we can dwell on these great things that the Lord is going to do.

The words are addressed to “ O land” as the uni-verse is addressed to us as individuals dwelling in the land of the eternally living as well to us as a people of God. We are called to rejoice not as the people of the world who delight in their own power, beauty, wealth, position or fame, who are conceited and boastful of their accomplishments but whose chief and primary source of joy is the Lord Himself. We delight in His fellowship. We delight in studying His word and obeying Him. We delight in His wonderful promises. The word “ rejoice” implies that we need to find joy again and again in the Lord, not in the things He has provided for us or the things He has done but in who He is to us. We should not get bored or exhausted or run out of enthusiasm as we tend to do with worldly things and activities but our joy keeps getting filled to the brim, overflows, empties and is renewed and filled again and again endlessly. Who we are or what we have or what we have done is not the source of our joy but whose we are is the source. “JOY” implies “Jesus Owns You.” Everyone else might reject us but Jesus owns us. He belongs to us and we belong to Him and His banner over us is love and that is the source of our joy. It removes our fear of failure, fear of success, fear of want, fear of shame, fear of death, fear of sin and its consequences, fear of curses, fear of the powerful, fear of the new, fear of the future, fear of the unknown, fear of threats, fear of dangers, fear of rejection and so on. It increases our peace, gladness, grace, hope and joy.

Prateep V Philip