Cultivating JoySample

A Happy Duty

If joy is an essential feature of the life of Christians who are filled with God’s Spirit and bearing the fruit of the Spirit, why then is it so often missing in our lives? Why are Christians so miserable so often? 

Maybe because we simply forget. It’s easy to get tired and irritable and then to fall into self-pity. And self-pity is the great enemy of joy. We need to make ourselves remember the great truths of the gospel from the Bible itself. We need to go over them in our minds until we realize how inconsistent it is to say we believe such wonderful gospel truths, and then still go around filled with misery and feeling sorry for ourselves and spreading gloom on all those around us. Speaking personally, I find that I need to speak severely to myself along those lines quite often, for I am easily tempted to feel down and sorry for myself. Then I repent, remind myself of the gospel of God’s grace, and pray for the joy of the Spirit to bear fruit in my life and thinking. 

Or maybe it’s because we are suspicious of joy. Life is a serious business, we may say. And so it is. We may think that Christianity is more than just having a laugh. And so it is. But that doesn’t mean we should not have hearts that are filled with joy when our lives are filled with the Holy Spirit. After all, the Bible shows us very clearly that God not only wants us to be joyful, but actually commands us to be! It sounds strange to say that “joy is a duty,” but it is a happy duty! Paul was happy to repeat the command, so let’s obey it! “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4). 

Adapted from Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit. Copyright © 2017 by Christopher J. H. Wright. Used by permission. For more information, please visit www.ivpress.com/cultivating-the-fruit-of-the-spirit.