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 

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.

Psalm 21:6

    [6] For you make him most blessed forever;

        you make him glad with the joy of your presence.

Psalm 36:8

    [8] They feast on the abundance of your house,

        and you give them drink from the river of your delights.

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.

Religion Is Not Enough

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.”

COLOSSIANS 1:15-16

 

PONDER THIS

To explain Jesus is impossible, to ignore Jesus is disastrous, and to deny Him is fatal. We need to understand who Jesus Christ is. My speech is too limited, my mind is too finite, and my heart is too small to tell all I want to tell about the Lord Jesus Christ. Colossians 1:19 says, “For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell.” Jesus is not to be prominent in our lives; Jesus is to be preeminent. Jesus doesn’t just show the way; He is the way. Jesus doesn’t just give life; He is the life. He doesn’t just tell the truth; He is the truth.

God Himself is invisible. God in His essence is Spirit. God is unseeable, unknowable, and unapproachable unless we have some way to come to Him. We need someone to bring us to Him. Reason is not enough. Religion is not enough. Ritual is not enough. Jesus Christ is the One who makes the invisible God knowable. He is the image of the invisible God. You can never fully know God the Father unless you know God the Father through God the Son. It is through Jesus that you have access to God. You can’t make yourself better so you can go to God. Come broken to Jesus, and He is the way that will lead you to God.

What are some of the ways you have tried to get to God?

What is different between Jesus showing us the way and Him being the way? Why is that difference important?

PRACTICE THIS

Spend time reading the gospels, the Books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Reflect on who Jesus is. Consider what it means to live rightly with Him and how that differs from the way you are living now.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

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 

Bible Study

Ephesians 1:9-10

[9] making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ [10] as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

Ephesians 1:20-21

[20] that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, [21] far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.

Romans 11:34-36

    [34] “For who has known the mind of the Lord,

        or who has been his counselor?” 

    [35] “Or who has given a gift to him

        that he might be repaid?”

    [36] For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

1 Corinthians 8:6

[6] yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

You Don’t Have to Figure It All Out

“Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless.” 2 PETER 3:13-14

 

PONDER THIS

Prophesies often lead us to get caught up in wanting to know all the answers or understand how the future will happen. But the truth of what God calls us to do does not change regardless of the timing of End Times events. We need to get our heads out of the clouds of prophecy and our feet on the soul-winning pavement, seeking to bring others to Jesus Christ.

A new world order is coming, and Peter reminds us that in this ending age, we need not be motivated to figure it all out but to live life in Christ with urgency. One of these days the King will be on His throne, the criminal will be in jail, and the Bride (the Church) will be with the Groom (Jesus). I can hardly wait till Jesus comes, and I want to get as many to come with me as possible. Even so, come Lord Jesus.

How do you typically respond to passages that speak about the End Times? What are some fears you have or things you long to understand?

What would it look like to live life in Christ with urgency? Who can you share your hope with?

PRACTICE THIS

Pray for opportunities and boldness to share your faith with others and then be obedient to God’s prompting.

 

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

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