Spiritual Joy # 4 (and others)

Spiritual Joy # 4 (and others)

Think of the aid your joy will afford you in reference to all your other duties. It will shed an influence upon everything. It is this that will make you hail the Sabbath with delight, that will draw you to the throne of grace with boldness, enable you to read the Scriptures with pleasure, and render your sacramental seasons times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. The sanctuary, the closet, the Bible, and the Lord's table - will all be in shadow, and appear gloomy - if joy is absent. But spiritual joy will shed light upon all of these means of grace - and place them in sunshine.

Joy will assist you in the wayfare of the Christian life, and cause you to overcome the tediousness of your way, by the songs of the Lord. In the working out of our salvation, there must be not only fear and trembling, but hope and joy. Spiritual joy is the oil to the wheels of obedience. It is this which braces up the soul for action, and carries it forward through difficult and self-denying duties.

How can we best vanquish the world, that ever present, and every where present foe, which comes in so many forms, and with such golden pleas? How, but by a heart already well pleased with its own happiness in Christ. Spiritual joy is the world's vanquisher! The heart by holy joy rises above the world, sees it below, covered with smoke and dust, and finds itself in a brighter, purer, happier region, with the cloudless sun above, and all around filled with His glory. What has the world to offer comparable to that which is rejoicing faith has found in Christ? 

You are called, in this extraordinary age, to the great enterprise of the world's conversion; and in order to achieve it, you must make sacrifices of time, money, and ease. And how is this done? A happy church will be a working church. It is the joyous mind that aims at great things. The apostles and first disciples, though persecuted men, were joyous men. They counted it all joy even to fall into divers temptations. They astonished the world with the spectacle of moral heroes, who could smile at chains, imprisonment, and death. Religion appeared in all its power and glory as a superhuman principle, a something heavenly and divine, in such a scene, and many were converted to the faith by the martyr's joy as well as by his testimony.

Christians, imitate these examples. Do not tell the world you are happy, but appear so. Verify the assertion by your own experience, so often made, and so often expressed by Christians themselves, that the church of Christ is the seat of blessedness. Be in spirit a refutation of the world's slander upon religion, in the assertion that it is a sour, unhappy, gloomy spirit. A happy church would, almost by its very appearance without its labor, convert nations. The first beams of the millennial morning will be seen in this heavenly effulgence resting upon the church.

Therefore be happy Christians as well as holy ones. Exemplify in this, as in every other respect, the spirit of the gospel. Be like your Divine Master, in the purity, simplicity, and joyfulness, with which you devote yourselves to the service of mankind. Bring more of His serene and happy spirit into your work. Let your piety be seen by all to be a perennial fountain of peace and joy to your own soul, under the various appointments of Divine providence here. Anticipate the felicities of heaven here below. You stand in the porch of the celestial temple- appear like men who not only hear the songs within, but expect soon to see the everlasting gates thrown open to admit you to God's presence, where there is fullness of joy, and to His right hand, where there are pleasures forevermore!

~John Angell James~

(The End)
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Like Water to the Flame of Joy

"I have spoken these things to you, so that My joy may be in you, and your joy may be full." (John 15:11).

One of the reasons why so little spiritual joy is experienced by the majority of Christians, is because of sin. Sin weakens spiritual joy- and ought to do so! I do not now mean immorality - for that extinguishes joy! I mean the lesser workings of our corruption, the sins of the heart, the sins of the tongue, the sins of the character, sins known only to God and conscience, sins of omission, and sins of defect. Such sins may not put out the light of our piety altogether - but they surround it with an impure atmosphere, a thick fog - which prevents its light from shining upon the heart!

The religion of many is altogether too feeble. They are too worldly, too lukewarm, live too far from God - to derive much joy and peace from their piety. Spiritual joy is joy in God, in Christ, in holiness, in heaven! And when, therefore, the professor lives so little in the closet, communes so little with his Bible, and lives so far from God- it can be no wonder that his religion does not make him happy!

Sin is like water to the flame of joy. Cultivate all the branches of holiness; for holiness is happiness. Spiritual joy is the oil to the wheels of obedience. It is this which braces up the soul for action, and carries it forward through difficult and self-denying duties.

How can we best vanquish the world, that ever present foe, which comes in so many forms? How, but by a heart already well-pleased with its own happiness in Christ. Spiritual joy is the world's vanquisher! What has the world to offer comparable to this which a rejoicing faith has found in Christ? 

"The joy of the Lord is your strength!" (Nehemiah 8:10).

~John Angell James~