Daily Devotionals
Devotional: March 23rd
THE GIFT WHICH ENHANCES JOY
The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, in the power of the Holy Ghost. - Romans 15:13
The exercise of faith is itself joy, apart from what faith secures. We stretch out our hands to Christ, and the act is blessedness. But we lay hold of His hand, and in it there is a blessing which, when we take it, makes us glad. Faith is the condition of joy; and the salvation of our souls, which we receive as its end, is the great reason for joy.
If my heart is humbly, and even tremulously, resting upon Him, I have got, in the measure of my faith, the real germ of all salvation. What are the elements of which salvation consists? The fact and the sense of forgiveness to begin with. Well, I have that, have I not, if I trust Christ? A consciousness of favour, a sense of the friendship of God in Christ? - I have these, if I trust Him. A growing possession of pure desires, heaven-wrought tastes, of all that is called in the Bible "the new man" - well! I have that, surely, if I trust Him. My soul is saved when it is delivered from its sin, and filled with the love of God, and when the will is set in glad accord with His will. Such progressive salvation is given to me if I am trusting in Him, "Whom, having not seen, I love." All these will tend to joy. The consciousness of forgiveness will make me glad. The sense of His love will make me glad. The consciousness of union with Jesus will make me glad. Increasing deliverance from the burden of my self-will will make me glad. A growing obedience to Him will make me glad. It is joy to the just to do judgment. Brightening hopes will make me glad; and, in a thousand other ways, joy unspeakable and full of glory will attend the reception in our souls of that salvation which begins here and is perfected hereafter.
Surely, if we can find a power which will thus ennoble and calm our joy, and make it the ally of all things lovely and of good report, we shall have found a treasure indeed.
Such a power we can find in fellowship with Jesus Christ, through whom our joy, which have too long trailed along the ground, may be lifted high above the frivolities, and sometimes criminalities and hollowness’s, which, with so many of us, do duty for gladness. "As is the crackling of thorns under a pot," so is much of the world’s mirth. Make sure, my friend, that your joy is deep and still, noble and glorified, being drawn from Christ.
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