Do you have Courageous Joy?
At his website, best-selling Christian author Max Lucado shares these encouraging thoughts about Joy.
Everyone is looking for joy. Marketing companies know this. Every commercial promises the same product: joy. Want some joy? Buy our hand cream. Want some joy? Sleep on this mattress. Want some joy? Eat at this restaurant, drive this car, wear this dress. Every commercial portrays the image of a joy-filled person. Even Preparation H. Before using the product, the guy frowns and squirms in his chair. Afterwards, he is the image of joy.
Joy. Everyone wants it. Everyone promises it. But can anyone deliver it? It might surprise you to know that joy is a big topic in the Bible. Simply put: God wants his children to be joy-filled. Just like a father wants his baby to laugh with glee, God longs for us to experience a deep-seated, deeply rooted joy.
The joy offered by God is different than the one promised at the car dealership or shopping mall. God is not interested in putting a temporary smile on your face. He wants to deposit a resilient hope in your heart. He has no interest in giving you a shallow happiness that melts in the heat of adversity. But he does offer you a joy: a deep-seated, heart-felt, honest-to-goodness, ballistic strong sense of joy that can weather the most difficult of storms.
What about you? What has been taken from you? Your health? Your house? Have you buried a dream? Have you buried a marriage? Buried a friend? As you look at these burial plots of life, is your joy buried there, too?
…you may have substituted courageous joy for contingent joy. Contingent joy is always dependent upon a circumstance. Contingent joy says I’ll be happen when…or…I’ll be happy if. I’ll be happy when I have a new house or a new spouse. I’ll be happy when I’m healed or when I’m home. Contingent joy depends upon the right circumstance. Since we cannot control every circumstance, we set ourselves up for disappointment.
Envision the person who buys into the lie of contingent joy. As a young person they assume, if I get a car, I’ll be happy. They get the car, but the car wears out. They look for joy elsewhere. If I get married, I’ll be happy. So they get married, then disappointed. The spouse cannot deliver. This goes on through a series of attempts. If I get the new job… if I can retire… If we just had a baby. In each case, joy comes, then diminishes.
By the time this person reaches old age, he has ridden a roller coaster of hope and disappointment. He becomes sour and fearful. Contingent joy turns us into wounded people.
Courageous joy, however, turns us into strong people. Courageous joy sets the hope of the heart on Jesus and Jesus alone. Since no one can take your Christ, no one can take your joy.
…Years ago I lived on a houseboat that was docked on the Miami River. The level of the river would rise and fall with the tide. The boat rocked back and forth with the river traffic. But though the level changed and the boat rocked, we never drifted. Why? Because we were anchored to a concrete sea wall.
Courageously joyful people have done the same. They have anchored their hearts to the shoreline of God. Will the boat rock? Yes. Will moods come and go? No doubt. But will they be left adrift on the Atlantic of despair? No, for they have found a joy which remains courageous through the storm. And this courageous joy is quick to become a contagious joy.
This Sunday, October 4, we will continue our inspiring study through the Book of Philippians, “Unshakable Joy!” with “Rejoice in the Lord” (4:2-9). Please invite someone to join you at the 10:35am worship service in the building or online for the Live broadcast on either Facebook (Honolulu AG) or our YouTube channel (Honolulu Assembly of God). We Livestream every Sunday to both locations and would love to have you join us!
The “Celebration of Life” service for my dad, William Ashpole, is this Saturday, October 3, at 1pm at Faith Assembly in Mililani (95-121 Waimakua Drive). Visitation is at 12pm and the service is at 1pm. For those who want to attend in person, parking will be at Inspire Church Mililani (95-061 Waimakua Drive), just a few blocks down the street. The service will also be Livestreamed at faithag.subspla.sh/fpy26tb.
Aloha and Aloha ke Akua!
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