“I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in Him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13 NLT)
What first comes to mind when you think of joy? If the first word that came to mind was “happiness,” you’d probably be in good company. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “joy” as: “a feeling of happiness that comes from success, good fortune, or a sense of well-being.” What do all of these things have in common? They are human emotions motivated by human activity. Why is that a problem? Because humans fail and emotions lie. How we feel about something doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with true, biblically defined joy. Joy isn’t self-generated or doesn’t come from external stimuli; it’s a gift from God.
Joy in Scripture is derived from God, is a gift from Him and can be activated by our relationship with the Lord and with the Lord’s people. That’s why the late Tim Keller had it right when he said: “The opposite of joy is not sadness, it’s hopelessness.” To be hopeless is to be lost, it’s trying to live life without Jesus. A person may live in a huge mansion, make zillions of dollars a day, but they’ll never understand what joy is if they don’t have a personal, love relationship with the Creator of the Universe.
Hope, according to Strong’s Concordance, is “joyful and confident expectation of eternal salvation.” And since Jesus is the Author of eternal salvation, to not know Him is to not have joy or confident expectation of anything beyond what this world can offer. What can the world offer? Pleasure, brief happiness based on external stimuli, conditional relationships, and fleeting success, none of which are a source of lasting joy.
What does the Lord offer? Eternal hope that doesn’t depend on the fleeting promises of this world, but on the eternal promises of the One who gave His life for us. The One who said: “I will never leave you, I will never forsake you!” The One who said in John 6:37: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to Me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in Me will never be thirsty.”
Was He speaking of literal hunger or thirst? No, of course not, He was speaking of the deep, agonizing, aching hunger for peace, contentment, joy, meaning, and satisfaction in knowing you have an eternal home in heaven that can only come through a relationship with the Lord Jesus. It’s the deep contentment knowing that you’re living for more than yourself and what you can accomplish with your life here on earth.
Yes, of course, there have been some great achievers who didn’t know Jesus, but the glory of their achievements died with them. There is no eternal reward for human effort. The only effort that will get any of us to heaven is the effort of Jesus on our behalf. Yes, of course, we put forth human effort to maintain godly disciplines: to serve Him, worship Him, and share Him with others, but none of that effort can earn us a place in heaven. Only what Jesus accomplished on the Cross on our behalf can pay the penalty for our sin and free us from our bondage to sin, death, and the grave.
The only antidote to hopelessness isn’t happiness, it’s holiness. It’s peace with God that comes through a personal surrender to the Lordship of Jesus. How does that happen? Please tap anewstory.com and let Ron Hutchcraft walk you through a very simple, straightforward path to yielding your life and allegiance to the Lord. It’s a decision that you will never regret, especially not in eternity.
Food for thought.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 