Is the joy of the Lord really your strength? (Neh 8:10)
Is joy happiness? Is happiness your goal? Should it be? What exactly is joy in this ever declining art of language in this time and culture?
‘Calm delight’ is the Strong’s definition for ‘chara’ the Greek word for joy. Gladness could be a synonym for joy.
But knowing how all of these fruit work together to help produce each other, what does the seven fruit behind joy have to do with it’s production in your life? Can you really have ‘heavenly joy’ without a developed fruit of spiritual peace? Or patience? Or kindness? You get my drift. These fruit work together to the zenith of all fruit, but that’s another devotional. This fruit is second in the long line. It has importance. If it is present in someone’s life there is evidence of a spiritual maturity made up of the other seven fruit listed AFTER … joy.
John chapter 15 is a good chapter to ponder considering this fruit of … joy. What is this joy Jesus says should be in ‘fullness’ within us? What are the requirements for this fruit of exist in us? What exactly does it mean to actually ‘abide in Him’?
There is lots of ‘spiritual talk’ about joy — but very little explanation of what it really is. These first three listed fruits (Gal 5:22-23) are somewhat intangible in explanation. How does one explain the taste of an orange without actually tasting one? And actually experiencing the act of eating an orange? These fruit are to be experienced and tasted and not just put under an academic microscope. When one begins to truly experience spiritual peace that only God / Holy Spirit can give .. then joy is the next step in the progression. Does peace produce joy? I think the combination of the other seven fruit all in production produce .. spiritual joy … that Jesus was taking about in John 15. When you personally taste it … you’ll just know… that is REAL joy.
For this illusive fruit of spiritual joy to exist.. patience … especially patience in it’s long suffering mode WITHOUT complaint must be present and mature for REAL joy to begin to show up. Yep this is a complex and difficult fruit to produce in our lives. We must be SO in touch with the Holy Spirit in obedience to His instructions moment by moment that it has become just a part of the way we live our lives… and eventually our lives ( because of abiding in Him ) become full of …joy. Not a fleeting feeling like happiness, but a ‘calm inner knowing of delight’ that cannot be moved by the circumstances surrounding it. Real joy KNOWS where its strength lies, and what is waiting ahead.
Jesus wants us to be in the fulness of joy.