Author: Lisa Groen
Category: Devotional and prayer
I have 3 simple truths about the joy of the Lord for us to consider today. It is the knowledge of this joy that can help us to do hard things with a joyful momentum. They are:
- We get to rejoice and bring our joys to the Lord because we are chosen by God for serving the Lord, and this is invigorating that our rejoicing blesses him.
- We get to receive joy from the Lord even doing hard things as we are serving the Lord
- And as we bring our service to the Lord and recognize the grace from God upon our lives to live a changed life by his power, our actions can help serve to feed our joy in the Lord and create a joyful momentum, that seems to “come back to kiss our faces”.
To show these truths I bring us a glimpse of Psalm 119:4-5. These 2 scriptures give us a very simple reason we can rejoice in the Lord steadily even while doing hard things. Let’s read: 119:4-5 “Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun, 5 which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion, like a champion rejoicing to run his course.”
God’s strength and power are surely seen in the stability of the sun and with the immensity of heat and light it carries by radiating day after day almost seemingly without fail. It is something to consider the strength of the sun’s shining and it’s rising at one end of the sky and setting in another as if the sun were “rejoicing as a strong man to run his course”.
God is declaring his glory through the heavens in this Psalm. Although Psalm 119 is about how the glory of the sun is pictured as a strong man, its poetry gives us the feeling that there is a picture we can have about how powerful the knowledge of God’s glory is to propel us forward along with anything else touched by his glory. I can believe as we picture the application of truth from verses 4 and 5 we see that being touched by the glory of the Lord as the sun, can give those touched by God’s glory the expectation and experience of being propelled forward with strength and rejoicing by God’s declaring his glory in our lives.
If a Christian is saved for any length od time, we have recognized we can safely believe that God is consciously in the habit of providing all his children a strength comparable to magnet like adherence to a run a course for God with power and indistinguishable light although the sun is less touched by the glory of God inasmuch as Jesus didn’t die for the sun to be saved; he died for us to be saved. We may not keep to the path perfectly, to which we aree called, but the glory of God’s forgiveness and cleansing touches us, and we are revived and go on rejoicing stronger to run our course with God. God’s gravitational pull on us so to speak is a strong “gravity” or “staying power” he gives to keep us on course with him as a gift to pull us to him and a power to run in the path of his commands. Truly God makes us radiate his truth and love along our path as we rejoice, and he propels us forward with a powerful joy in our course in the Lord.
So, lets recap our 3 truths:
- We get to rejoice and bring our joys to the Lord because we are chosen by God for serving the Lord
- We get to receive joy from the Lord even doing hard things as we are serving the Lord
- And as we bring our service to the Lord and recognize the grace from God upon our lives to live a changed life by his power, our actions can help serve to feed our joy in the Lord.
Prayer: Oh God, may these truths with scriptural meditations serve to give us the joyful momentum to do hard things like fasting before you Oh God, and even long term or regular fasting Oh God. And may it also serve to give us a joyful momentum to do the hard thing of praying continuously before You Lord with gladness and willingness and find power and joy to fulfill our callings, and like a magnet “keep to our course” empowered with the heavenly touch of Your glory. Amen Lord, Amen!
Keep growing in the Word! LG
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