(Third part)
Memory verse (Rom14: 17) “ For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit ”.
One of the characteristics of a spirit filled life is joy. The Holy Spirit pours in our hearts the Joy of the Lord. David noted something about God, he said: in God’s presence there is fullness of joy (Ps16: 11). God is the source of all true and genuine joy. Nehemiah put it this way: the joy of the Lord our strength (Neh 8:10). Peter had a test of God’s joy and he described it as joy unspeakable. When God’s joy flows into your life, there are no words that can describe it fully. God’s joy is indescribable, unexplainable and unspeakable.
One day God visited his servant DL Moody, an American revivalist of many years ago. He remarked that God’s presence overwhelmed him and he cried out and said: “ God, hold up your presence or am going to die of joy”
There is a joy that people get when good things happen to them. Somebody called it happiness. God’s joy does not depend on any happenings or external things of this world; this joy comes from the river of the Holy Spirit flowing out of your spirit. This joy makes you strong spiritually. This joy fills your life with hymns, psalms and spiritual songs all the time. One thing characterizes people who are always sorrowful, miserable, depressed etc: a lifeless and dry silence.
Beloved let us learn to intensify our communion with the Holy Spirit. That communion produces the Joy of the Lord. My friend, it’s possible to rejoice all the time. Scripture says, rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice (Phil4: 4). You are not to rejoice because something good has happened; rejoice because you are full of the river of God’s joy. Peter and John had been in prison and they had been beaten and threatened but the scripture says they went rejoicing. That is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Paul and silas were jailed for preaching the gospel but at midnight they began to sing praises and prayed. They were not depressed but they were joyful. They still had a song to sing and celebrate with blood and wounds on their backs.
Beloved get immersed in the River of The Holy Spirit and swim in the river all your days. When people see you, they will wonder because you’ll always be joyful. My friend there is no reason why you should live joy-less when there is the whole river of God’s joy. Open your mouth wide and drink in the joy of the Lord (Ps81: 10).
Tomorrow’s subject: “ The fruit of peace ”
