Fifteen Tactics for Joy

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Psalm 16:11)

In this life of sin and pain, joy is embattled. Just like faith. And Paul says to Timothy, “Fight the good fight of the faith” (1 Timothy 6:12). So it is with joy. We must work for it and fight for it. Paul said to the Corinthians, “We work with you for your joy” (2 Corinthians 1:24).

How then shall we fight for joy? Here are 15 pointers.

Realize that authentic joy in God is a gift.

Realize that joy must be fought for relentlessly. And don’t be put off by the paradox of these first two pointers!

Resolve to attack all known sin in your life, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Learn the secret of gutsy guilt — how to fight like a justified sinner.

Realize that the battle is primarily a fight to see — to see God for who he is.

Meditate on the word of God day and night.

Pray earnestly and continually for open heart-eyes and an inclination for God.

Learn to preach to yourself rather than listen to yourself.

Spend time with God-saturated people who help you see God and fight the fight.

Be patient in the night of God’s seeming absence.

Get the rest, exercise, and proper diet that your body was designed by God to have.

Make a proper use of God’s revelation in nature — take a walk in the woods.

Read great books about God and biographies of great saints.

Do the hard and loving thing for the sake of others (your verbal witness and deeds of mercy).

Get a global vision for the cause of Christ, and pour yourself out for the unreached.

John Piper 

Accepted by God, at Peace Within

“And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” 

MATTHEW 22:39

 

PONDER THIS

Most of us have never really accepted ourselves. We’re still struggling and trying to make ourselves acceptable. But we can’t. Just accept by faith that God has accepted you and be at peace. That is real peace.

I hear people say you’re not supposed to love yourself. No, that’s wrong. You’re to love yourself. You’re not to love your faults. I’m not talking about egotism. May I ask you a question? Does God love you? Is it all right for you to love what God loves? What does the Bible say? We are to love one another as we love ourselves. Now, if you don’t love you, you can’t love me. See? How do we love ourselves? We understand we are what we are by the grace of God. We have been born of God. We’re going to God. We have that peace.

Do you love yourself as described in today’s devotion?

How can you love yourself in this way while still honoring God? Why is it not sinful to love yourself in this way?

PRACTICE THIS

Write out a list of ways God loves you. Consider how you are to love yourself so that you can display true love to others.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Bible Study

Matthew 7:14

[14] For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

John 14:6

[6] Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Matthew 18:8

[8] And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire.

2 Corinthians 2:15-16

[15] For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, [16] to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?

 

The Day Is at Hand

The night is far gone; the day is at hand. (Romans 13:12)

This is a word of hope to suffering Christians. It’s a word of hope to Christians who hate their own sin and long to be done with sinning. It’s a word of hope to Christians who long for the last enemy Death to be overcome and thrown into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:14).

How is it a word of hope for all these?

“The night” stands for this age of darkness and all its sin and misery and death. And what does Paul say about it? “The night is far gone.” The age of sin and misery and death is almost spent. The day of righteousness and peace and total joy is dawning.

You might say, “2,000 years seems like a long dawn.” From one standpoint it is. And we cry, How long, O Lord, how long will you let it go on? But the biblical way to think goes beyond this lament of “How long!” It looks at world history differently.

The key difference is that the “day” — the new age of the Messiah — has really dawned in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the end of this fallen age. That is, the end of this fallen age has, as it were, broken in to this world. Jesus defeated sin and pain and death and Satan when he died and rose again. The decisive battle of the ages is over. The kingdom has come. Eternal life has come.

And when dawn happens — as it did in the coming of Jesus — no one should doubt the coming of day. Not even if the dawn draws out 2,000 years. As Peter says in 2 Peter 3:8, “Do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” The dawn has come. The day has arrived. Nothing can stop the rising of the sun to full day.

John Piper 

From Glory to the Cross

“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.” PHILIPPIANS 2:5-7

 

PONDER THIS

Jesus stepped out of Heaven and went from sovereignty to slavery. He humbled Himself. He became obedient. Satan, in contrast, in his pride said, “I will ascend. I will be like the Most High.” He thought, “I’m going up, up, up, up.” But God said, “No, you’re going down, down, down, down, down.” Jesus stepped out of glory and humbled Himself. It is for this reason the Bible says, “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow” (Philippians 2:9-10).

Many of us fight for reputation. Jesus laid aside His reputation. We like to talk about how we came from nothing to something. Every now and then, you’ll have an evangelist who will travel from place to place. Maybe God saved him in prison, and his message is, “From the Prison to the Pulpit.” I’m glad for that, but Jesus came from something and made Himself of no reputation for our sake.

How does it affect you to remember that Jesus made Himself nothing out of something for your sake?

How does this compare to the way you live daily and the goals you pursue for yourself?

PRACTICE THIS

Consider how you might practice humility this week and prayerfully take action in that regard.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Bible Study

2 Corinthians 8:9

[9] For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.

Isaiah 42:1

    [1] Behold my servant, whom I uphold,

        my chosen, in whom my soul delights;

    I have put my Spirit upon him;

        he will bring forth justice to the nations.

Romans 8:3-4

[3] For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, [4] in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

John 1:14

[14] And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

 

The Great Exchange

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed. (Romans 1:16–17)

We need righteousness to be acceptable to God. But we don’t have it. What we have is sin.

So, God has what we need and don’t deserve — righteousness; and we have what God hates and rejects — sin. What is God’s answer to this situation?

His answer is Jesus Christ, the Son of God who died in our place and bore our condemnation. “By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he [God] condemned sin in the flesh” (Romans 8:3). Whose flesh bore the condemnation? His. Whose sins were being condemned? Ours. This is the great exchange. Here it is again in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

God lays our sins on Christ and punishes them in him. And in Christ’s obedient death, God fulfills and vindicates his righteousness and imputes (credits) it to us. Our sin on Christ; his righteousness on us.

We can hardly stress too much that Christ is God’s answer to our greatest problem. It is all owing to Christ.

You can’t love Christ too much. You can’t think about him too much, or thank him too much, or depend upon him too much. All our forgiveness, all our justification, all our righteousness is in Christ.

This is the gospel — the good news that our sins are laid on Christ and his righteousness is laid on us, and that this great exchange becomes ours not by works but by faith alone. “By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9).

Here is the good news that lifts burdens and gives joy and makes strong.

John Piper