Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea….

By John Stallings

Ugly, joyless, cloudy Christianity (isn’t that an oxymoron?) stalks the church of the twenty-first century like the plague. Has anyone noticed that spirit generated joy seems too often to be missing? Services are held, songs are sung, sermons are preached & prayers are prayed but the living Christ seems to be absent.

When you compare what we generally see today in religious circles with the early church there doesn’t seem to be much that is similar. No I haven’t gone negative but I was told that blogs were a place where you unburdened your heart & were totally candid so here I go. Or as Ronald Reagan would say; “There I go again.”

The early church was magnetic & appealing & I believe the ingredient they were working with was the heavenly dynamic of Spirit-generated, radiant joy.

Jesus was a man who glowed with joy. His Father said of Him in Hebrews 1:9—Thou hast loved righteousness & hated iniquity; there fore God even thy God hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.

Christianities first martyr had this joy on his face when he was arrested for the people in attendance “saw that his face was like the face of an angel.” (Acts 6:15)

It takes more than a church membership card, a dip under the water & a Christian background to produce radiant, joyful Christians. They can sprinkle you, squirt you, spray you, spit on you, baptize you frontward, backwards or sideways but it takes the power of the risen Lord & His Holy Spirit to produce this “unspeakable joy.”

The worst advertisement for Christianity is joyless people & the most convincing & compelling advertisement any church can have to attract people into its fellowship are glowing, joyous, radiant Christians.

I know you understand that I’m not talking about giddy, showy religiosity or shallow pompous superficial gaiety. The kind of joy I’m describing isn’t a work of the flesh nor can it be manufactured by man. I think there are at least three things that can produce this kind of overcoming joy in our lives.


1. An appetite for God.

Jesus said, -- Blessed are those who hunger & thirst after righteousness for they will be filled. (Matt. 5:6)

Joyful Christians are people who are hungry to know Christ more intimately. They are eager to grow in grace & want to be used by God more effectively. They are Bible-totters & you can see the hunger in their eyes for the things of God.

2. A joyful Christian hates sin & loves righteousness.

We saw in the verse in Hebrews that Jesus was exalted by His father because of His abhorrence of evil & love for holiness. Joy departs when sin enters. But when sin is confessed & forsaken joy returns. Following his confession, King David prayed, “Restore unto me the joy of Your salvation. (Psalm 51:12.)

It doesn’t have to be the sin of adultery or drunkenness, it can be the more “respectable sins” like gossip, slander, greed, grumbling & unkindness.

3. A joyful Christian will consistently listen to & for the voice of God.

This is one of those “reaching scenarios” but if I had been away from my wife for an extended length of time & were given the option of seeing her standing on a distant hill, or hearing her voice speaking to me, expressing the things she wanted to say & I hungered to hear, I’d take the option of hearing her voice.

I’ve never particularly hungered for a vision of Jesus because my God-given imagination lets me know all I need to know about what his personal vestige is like, but I do have an abiding hunger to hear His voice.

John 3:29 says….but the friend of the bridegroom which standeth & heareth rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegrooms voice; this my joy therefore is fulfilled.

Are you daily listening for the voice of your bridegroom with His Word open before you in the place of prayer? Have you allowed the strange voices of the world to muffle the voice of your heavenly bridegroom?

Stay with him a while each day; be still, get quiet & open His word, don’t be in a hurry. Don’t leave until you’ve heard His voice & know that sweet communion has been yours.

Then you will leave the place of prayer with total joy. Practice this & you’ll be a radiant, joyful Christian.

John