Joy Through Holy Life

Devotion 11 - Joy Through a Holy life before God

Ps.51:10-12 – “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.  Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.  Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and uphold me by Your generous Spirit.”

 

This psalm was written after David committed adultery with Bathsheba murdered her husband Uriah and confronted by the prophet Nathan regarding his sin (2Sam.11-12).

 

It was spring of the year and a time when kings go out for battle. However, David stayed behind in Jerusalem. He saw Bathsheba, lusted after her beauty, sent for her and committed adultery with her. Later, David found out that she was pregnant. In order to cover up his sin, he sent for her husband Uriah and gave him time off from war to be with her so that Uriah would think he was the father of the unborn child. However, Uriah refused to take comfort at home while his fellow soldiers were off at war. With no choice, David came up with an evil plan, sent Uriah back to war and had him killed at the front lines. The plan worked and Bathsheba subsequently became his wife.

 

In Psalm 51, David was praying that God would restore to him the divine joy which he had before, that which he described in Psalm 16:11 – “in Your presence is fullness of joy…”. Interestingly, Ps.51:11 also mentions of God’s presence “do not cast me away from Your presence…”. David knew that his sin had caused him to lose the divine joy he had, and since that joy was to be found only in God’s presence, he pleaded that he would not be cast away from God’s presence. Perhaps, David was worried that God would deal with him as He had dealt with King Saul. After Saul’s persistent sin and disobedience, God abandoned him and from then on, Saul was troubled by an evil spirit (1Sam.16:14).

 

Joy Through the Holy Spirit

 

1 Thess.1:6 – “And you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit…”

 

When we are saved, a new joy from the Spirit of God is imparted into our life. One of the hallmarks of one who is filled with the Holy Spirit is joy as it’s one of the virtues of the fruit of the Spirit.

Gal.5:22-23 – “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control…”

We can only have the divine joy of the Lord when the Holy Spirit dwells in us. However, we can lose that divine joy through sin when we lose fellowship with God.  Hence, it is so vital that as Christians we should be diligent and consciously walk in the spirit.

 

David lost that joy when he chose to sin, and it is the same for every one of us today. Last week, we talked about joy that comes through abiding in His love which is through walking in obedience to His word. True joy can only come from the presence of the Lord, and joy and holiness cannot be separated. In fact, joy can act as a barometer of how ‘deep’ we are in His presence.

 

Sadly, many choose to live in sin and continued to struggle with life with their own strength. We are who we are by the grace of God, without His Grace, we cannot achieve anything significant in the eternality perspective. Like David, if we truly want to move on with God from strength to strength, we first need to forsake sin and ask God to restore to us the joy of His salvation.

 

If we lose the Joy, we can become a vessel for the Enemy

A bitter and resentful heart is a good breeding ground for Satan. When we lose our joy, we lose the immune system in our spirit and the evil one can defeat us easily and even use us to further rob others of their joy. Those who are hurt tend to hurt others. All the onslaughts of the enemy were designed with one purpose and one purpose alone, to take away our grateful and thankful heart to God and replace it with a heart of resentment and complains.

 

For those reasons, we are commanded to “rejoice in the Lord always” (Phil.4:4). One of the most important responsibilities as Christians is to be a witness for Christ on the earth. The unsaved world needs to see this divine and supernatural joy that exuberates in us despite the situations or circumstances we go through in life.  Such persistent and resilient joy points them to Jesus.  Let’s commit to living a spirit-filled life to shine for Jesus!

 

About 300 years ago a storm was threatening to sink a ship on the Atlantic Ocean. On that ship was a young man whose name was John Wesley. As the winds and waves grew stronger and stronger, he was terrified and thought he was going to die. But on that same ship, there was a group of Moravian Christians who did not seem to be fearful at all. And even in the worst part of the storm they were still calmly singing praises to God. John Wesley was amazed. He knew that they had something he did not have. When the ship finally arrived safely in England, Wesley did not rest until he found the secret of their joy – their saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He was converted and went on to become mightily used of God to bring a great revival to England. May the joy of the Lord in us be used by Him to bring similar results for His glory!