Wayne Weekly “Joy In the Loop”
Written by Wayne Taylor on March 27, 2018
Last week I heard a message by the late Dr. R.C. Sproul on the subject of joy. It was such a light hearted and really, “fun” message that drove home what “joy” really is.
Dr. Sproul gave personal examples that made me laugh out loud (I’ll refrain from using the acrostic LOL). He reflected on the day he and friends were engaged in playing “stick ball” in the streets of his boyhood home in Pittsburg, PA., when out of nowhere people all over the neighborhood came out in the streets banging on pans and whooping and hollering. At first RC did not know what in the world was going on with all the commotion, but soon realized as he listened, that the World War II was over!
Dr. Sproul said that this was one time when he remembered “joy” personified.
As I thought on this, I rehashed all that I had heard about this thing we call joy. Being happy is not necessarily being joyful. Joy runs much deeper than happiness. It is a condition of the heart. It engulfs the human soul. It transcends a “happy moment or two” by far.
Knowing and loving God brings joy. As believers we’re not always happy, that would be odd, but down in our hearts we have joy. Now how far that reaches beyond the heart is, I believe, how close we’re walking to the Lord.
Joy knows no limitations, other than un-thankfulness and a list of other sins. Walking in the Spirit produces fruit, and joy is part of that fruit. Joy bypasses not so happy situations. We can be joyful under trial, under illness, under persecution. That’s the nature of joy. It’s is its own actuality.
Christian, God gives joy to us freely. It’s a matter of keeping Jesus in the loop.
“Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.”
Habakkuk 3:17-18
