Foreward

Several years ago, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had a gladness deep inside me that I could not explain.  I was going through some very difficult times in my life and had been experiencing alot of depression so I knew that God was doing a new thing in my life.  I had been actively seeking answers in the scripture and the principles that I found there were making possible the joy that was coming out of my sorrow and pain.   What you are about to read is what the Lord has taught me concerning this joy and the way we can experience it every day of our lives.

For most of us, joy is a rather vague quality of life that sometimes seems elusive and hard to find.  We all experience some degree of sorrow and pain in our lives and tend to reach for anything that resembles joy.

Depression, which is the opposite of joy, is so common in our society that it affects most of us to some degree - for many, it is a plague that causes heartache, and the inability to live life successfully.  It is joy that is a necessary ingredient for success in life.  Joy is the strength that is necessary to live life the way God intends for it to be lived.  The scripture says "do not be grieved for the joy of the Lord is your strength". (Neh 8:10 b)

We don't think about strength or joy very much because, for most of us, happiness is the primary purpose in life.  It becomes so important that we center our thinking and activity around the pursuit of things, people and the circumstances that we think will bring us happiness.  Most people that gain a measure of happiness generally believe that they also have joy - the meaning of joy has become so vague that they confuse it with happiness not realizing that joy is a much more meaningful experience in life.

Joy, unlike happiness, is not dependent on happenings or circumstances.  A person in good health that has congenial company and pleasant surroundings may be happy but those circumstances in themselves do not bring joy.  Joy comes from a confident expectation of all that is good and desirable in life.  It is a gladness that comes out of an assurance that God is in control of a life that has been committed to Him -- that He will make that person successful by developing in him talent and other qualities that are good and desirable.  Joy is a glad assurance that God will work all things together for good.  Of course, emotion can be a substitute, but real joy is more than emotion -- it lies deep in the heart and comes only from God.  (Ecc. 2:26)  Real joy produces gladness, mental and emotional strength, satisfaction with life and a merry heart.  In the Bible, it is described as the "fruit of God's Holy Spirit". (Gal. 5:22)  Real joy is planted and made to grow by God if we depend upon Him to control our lives.  Real joy, unlike happiness, can exist and even grow in the midst of sorrow and pain.

Our heavenly Father loves us very much, but He sometimes allows sorrow and pain in our lives.  You may ask -- why does a loving God permit sorrow and pain -- why don't we have joy all the time?  It is because He loves us and has a plan for each of our lives -- a plan that requires our participation.  He could have but He did not makes us robots.  He has given us the privilege of choice -- a free will.  The problem is that we tend to ignore Him and seek to live life without His wisdom and guidance.  Because our pride demands that we depend upon ourselves, we devise our own plan.  Then without His guidance, we sometimes allow our emotions to guide our lives.   Left alone, they weave all sorts of unreal situations in our minds that upset us and cause emotional and even physical suffering.  Many times in my life, suffering has caused me to see that I was ignoring God -- that my pride was leading me away from His guidance and into sorrow and pain.

All of us, experience physical and emotional suffering as well as the sorrow and pain of accidents, disease and misfortune in our lives.  The question is not whether we will suffer sorrow and pain.  The question is:  how will we react when suffering comes?  Some people accept it and make it part of their lives.  Others resent it and sometimes blame God.  But the only valid way to react to suffering is to allow it to lead us into a closer relationship with our heavenly Father.  Without a close relationship, we are strangers in God's house and do not have that expectation of all that is good and desirable.  I believe that the glow of joy that we sometimes see on the little children's faces is a reflection of a confident expectation that their parents will meet all their needs.  In the Christian life, it is in this kind of confident expectation that God produces joy -- even in the midst of sorrow and pain.  Well, you may ask -- how can I have confident expectation so that I will have joy in my life?   The answer is that the seed has already been planted even though it may be dormant in your heart.  It is natural for a child to confidently expect its need to be met and it is the same in the spiritual realm.  It is natural for a child of God to confidently expect our heavenly Father to give us all that is good and desirable in life.   But if we allow guilt to separate us from Him, we cannot see the reality of spiritual life and are not aware that God has already placed confident expectation deep in our hearts.

The Bible says in I John 3:21 (Amplified Bible) that if our hearts do not make us feel guilty, "we have confidence, complete assurance and boldness before God."   That is certainly confident expectation but a person without it is allowing his heart to make him feel guilty.  In the Bible, "the heart" is our conscience or the "attitude of our minds" and is shaped by our thinking.  A person that allows his heart to make him feel guilty is accepting accusations from his own emotionally charged thinking in addition to the guilt that is the result of the circumstances of a life lived apart from God.  Over time, the guilty thoughts begin to affect his thinking about himself that says: I am guilty.  He may not admit it even to himself, but he already feels that he is guilty of not just one particular thing, but many things that he has stored up in his heart.  This thought process is so subtle that it is not readily recognized.  So for most people, the option of being forgiven is not even considered - they simply allow their hearts to make them feel guilty.   The guilt may be real or imagined, but the result is always the same - they have no confidence before God because the guilt causes feelings of shame, anger and fear.   When this happens their relationships with both God and man tend to become shallow because they are afraid to open their lives to others - they do not share their life with those around them  for fear of being exposed in their guilt.  Being open with others is considered to be a weakness and many live their lives around the idea of being "strong and silent".  People in this dilemma tend to seek friends, wives and husbands that, like themselves, are afraid of deep relationships.  This fear sometimes progresses to the point that they avoid and sometimes reject people that are willing to share their lives with others.  It is a major problem in our society - people everywhere lose the confident expectation that God places in our hearts and that deprives them of joy.  Their guilt and lack of joy hinders their relationships with their friends, with their marriage partners and with their God.  But there is a way out - the way out, of course, is getting rid of the self-destructing attitude of guilt.   But getting rid of guilt is not always easy.  Because guilt adds to our separation from God, we become even more out of touch with the very one that has the solution.  The solution for all guilt is God's forgiveness and he makes it available to all of us all the time.  David said in Psalm 86:5 (RSV):  "For thou, O Lord, art good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call on thee".

God really does love us and wants us to have His forgiveness.  If we receive it, our guilt is eliminated.  If we are forgiven by God, we cannot be guilty anymore!   Of course, it is good to have the forgiveness of men, but God's forgiveness "wipes the slate clean" because He is the one we are ultimately responsible to.   He will eliminate all of our guilt if we are willing to call upon Him for forgiveness.  That probably sounds like an easy solution, but for most of us, it is difficult because our pride demands that we depend upon ourselves.  Because of that, many people will not even consider their guilt or their need for forgiveness.  Our minds are capable of devising  hundreds of ways to keep us from seeing the reality of our guilt.  We become our own enemy by refusing to see our need for forgiveness - we unwittingly choose to remain guilty and forfeit the confident expectation that is the source of joy.

It has been said that "humanity is never so beautiful as when praying for forgiveness or offering forgiveness to others".  Giving and receiving forgiveness leads to joy and joy changes things - it makes humanity beautiful.  But the benefits of joy will never be yours unless you are both giving and receiving forgiveness.  The same pride that refuses to see our need for forgiveness refuses to forgive the things others do that hurt us.  If we are to have joy in our lives, we must put down pride and be willing to forgive and be forgiven.

"Whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him and let it drop - leave it - let it go - in order that your Father who is in heaven may also forgive you your failings and shortcomings and let them drop.  But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your failings and shortcomings".   (Mark 11:25-26 Amplified)  That is a direct quotation from the words of Jesus and it contains the key to a joy filled life.  The obstacle of guilt is eliminated by God's forgiveness but we must forgive to be forgiven.

Jesus is saying in this verse, that our forgiving others makes it possible to receive forgiveness for ourselves - it says that "in order that your Father who is in heaven may also forgive you."  He wants us to have all the forgiveness we need but He cannot give it to us if we are not close enough to Him to receive it.  If we resent and refuse to forgive others we are hating them and hate makes us guilty before God.   We have already seen that guilt separates us from God and makes communication through a personal relationship with Him impossible.  Without this communication, it is not possible to receive His forgiveness - to be forgiven by God or anyone else, we must be in close touch with them.  But if we put down pride and are willing to forgive others and receive forgiveness for ourselves, we have a new relationship with our heavenly Father -- a relationship in which He can and will forgive us.  Then His Holy Spirit gives us the strength to overcome the arguments of our minds that convince us that we are not resentful or unforgiving.  If we renounce resentment and the critical attitude that accompanies it, the circumstances of our lives take on a new reality.  it then becomes evident that the guilt of resentment and other sin in our lives has robbed us of the communication we need with our heavenly Father -- communication through a personal relationship that makes it possible to receive His forgiveness and His joy.

The scripture says, in 1 John 1:9, that if we confess our sins to God, (talking to him personally) that He will forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  He forgives us and wipes away all of our guilt if we come into relationship with Him and tell Him that we know that we have been wrong - that we want to receive the forgiveness and cleansing that was made possible when Jesus paid the penalty for our sin with His death on the cross.  God's forgiveness and cleansing is the very thing that is necessary to be born into the family of God - to be "born again".  When we turn away from sin, believing that Jesus has already paid the penalty for it, we can receive the very life of God.  We are born spiritually when we truly receive Jesus and His forgiveness into our hearts and lives.  With new life from God, we can go on to be cleansed from unrighteousness - we become more and more righteous.  That is, we have more and more "right standing" - the right to stand before our heavenly Father.  Then, with this new relationship, our hearts do not make us feel guilty anymore - we have confidence, complete assurance and boldness before God -- we have confident expectation.   We can confidently expect all that is good and desirable in life and know that God will work all things together for good as we fit into His plan for our lives.  Out of this, God's Holy Spirit produces the fruit of joy regardless of the circumstances.

Sorrow and pain may be present at various times in our lives, but joy has the capacity to cover the suffering with mental and emotional strength.  Then we can actually be glad for the suffering as we see God developing in us new talent, strength of character as well as mental, emotional and spiritual maturity - the things that are necessary to be the best we can be in this life.  In addition, He very often changes difficult circumstances in ways that turn suffering into blessing.  If we nourish the confident expectation of these and other blessings, joy will be present even in the midst of sorrow and pain.  Over time, if we continue in this, it is possible to experience joy every day of our lives as we discipline our minds to expect the best from God.  What we are talking about is living a normal Christian life, but it cannot be lived by standing on the sidelines without a personal relationship with our Lord.  We must stop conforming our thinking to the negative things in the world around us.  We must discover the good and desirable things that God has in store for us and talk to Him about the way He wants to fit them into our lives.  Through a close personal relationship, we can stand before God with confident expectancy day by day.  When that is done over a period of time, joy begins to ripen into the precious fruit that it is - the fruit of God's Holy Spirit.