The Joy of the Lord

Without a doubt, the joy of the Lord is our strength. Why else would the enemy be so dead set on robbing us of it? With this joy we have an inner confidence which enables us to “leap over walls” (sail over the obstacles of life). With this joy we feel invincible even in the midst of troubles. And—get this!—we have 3 tremendous ways of entering into the joy of the Lord!

Then he said to them, "Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength." Nehemiah 8:10

All scripture citations are from the English Standard Version (ESV) unless otherwise noted.

His Endless Joy

While on earth Jesus so thoroughly identified with our suffering (culminating in the cross) that Isaiah could rightly say about Him that He was “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”[1] You cannot say that now! Yes, He still grieves when we grieve, He still shares in our sorrows, but He is light years beyond us when it comes to joy.[2] He is on the other side of the cross—the resurrection side—and He has fully Ascended into glorious joy.

That’s great, good news for us, because it means that He has an infinite overflow of joy to share. Aren’t you glad? Well, if you aren’t lighting up like a Christmas tree, don’t be dismayed. It is His joy to help us enter into His joy and He's serious about getting us to rejoice with Him. It was for the “joy set before Him” that He embraced the cross.[3] We, too, will sometimes have to pass through suffering and sorrow in order to arrive at the joy on the other side of our crosses.

Joy is costly in a sin-stained world. It doesn’t always drop in on us like the dews of heaven, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t readily available. Joy is freely given to us in the Beloved. We simply have to learn how to access it. This isn’t about merit. None of us will ever deserve the endless delight that our Father has prepared for those who love His Son.[4] This is about receiving by faith what grace desires to give. If we want to live in His joy, we will have to learn how to position ourselves to receive it and enter more deeply into it. That’s where it can get costly. The price to “pay” is losing yourself in Him.

Like many things in life the entry points to His joy are easy enough at first. Mastering the lessons, however, requires “faith and patience,” but it is doable.[5] So, let’s turn to consider the three main ways the Lord has given us for entering into His joy, beginning with the easiest one first.

1. The Joy of His Blessings

This is so closely akin to happiness that the two are often confused. Our English word happiness comes from a root word (Middle English hap) that indicates chance or good luck. When good things “happen,” it makes us happy. Piece of cake! There is nothing wrong with this as long as we are talking about legitimately good things. God is the secret Giver of all good gifts[6] and even unbelievers can feel overjoyed with happiness—at those “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah” times when everything is going their way.[7] Our Father evidently delights in causing happiness to abound and doesn’t care if we don't know Him to thank Him for it. Just look at the great, good time little children are having.

There are (unhappily) several significant problems with happiness. First, it never lasts. Something always interrupts it and spoils the mood. Second, the feeling of being happy can be notoriously hard to recover. Some never again feel the idyllic happiness of their lost childhood and don’t know where to go to find a replacement. Third, as problems mount up it takes more and more “good things” to make one happy (on balance). Fourth, the effort to “pursue happiness” robs us of happiness along the way. We get so fixated on what we imagine will produce happiness that all else gets steamrolled. Last, but not least, with happiness you have no one to thank![8]

That’s where the Joy of His Blessing shows its superior quality. From beginning to end, if you have a faith relationship with the Living God through Jesus Christ, then you know that the good things that are making you happy are actually “love gifts” from heaven. We didn’t just get lucky; we were blessed intentionally by our Father in heaven. The same gift, which in an unbeliever produces happiness, in a believer produces a love message that lifts us into the Joy of the Lord. We have a double joy—the “happiness” caused by the good thing happening and the joy of realizing that it is a blessing from our God.

Not only that, but when the sense of joy in His blessings gets interrupted, we can relax better, knowing that it will return, because our Best Friend is dedicated to blessing us. In addition there are joys unique to our relationship with Jesus which unbelievers can know nothing of: taking delight in His word, in the pleasure of sharing faith with other believers, in recognizing His Hand upon nature and the events of the world around us, etc.[9] On top of all this, when we count our blessings, we don’t have to arrive at a total that shifts the balance as unbelievers do, we simply have to count our blessings until we remember that we have Someone who is sending them. Then the joy of the Lord lifts us all the way up!

You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound. Psalms 4:7

Let those who delight in my righteousness shout for joy and be glad and say evermore, "Great is the Lord, who delights in the welfare of his servant!" Psalms 35:27

Now, get ready for one of the most amazing facts about the joy of His blessings. He has placed us in charge of them! Don’t worry, God fully intends to keep dropping all kinds of good things into our lives “out of the blue”—without regard for our merits, but has set before all of us the ability to choose “life or death, blessing or cursing.”[10] We are in the driver’s seat. If we freely choose to lean into Jesus for wisdom, guidance and strength to walk in a way that pleases Him, the flow of blessings will dramatically increase. This is especially true of those blessings we call the fruit of the Spirit. Peace, love, joy, confidence and inner freedom all immediately show up inside of us whenever we trust Jesus with what He allows and are willing to follow Him in whatever He may ask of us. That’s something you can learn to do every day!

2. The Joy of His Salvation

The joy of His blessings is tremendously uplifting in those times when you’re going down the road of life doing reasonably well. You’ll need something far sturdier when you’ve driving your spiritual car into the ditch. This is the joy David reached for when he was confessing how badly he blew it in Psalm 51. You don’t have to be a believer to take joy in what you can do to rescue your life from one problem to the next. Any heathen can do that. But you do have to be a believer in Jesus to take joy in what He is doing to rescue you!

Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Psalms 51:12

Best of all, this joy is not based on anything you are doing. That’s a real bonus because on close examination none of us are hitting the mark. In fact, what mostly gets us down is the sight of how badly we seem to be doing in one area or another. Ironically, that’s where this joy gets ignited. The dismal sight of our sins and failures “makes us” turn to see that we have an all-purpose Savior in Jesus, who not only wants to get us to heaven, He is willing to rescue us in any situation right now. What do you need? Mercy or help? He’s got both![11]

Your sins and failures can push you into the joy of His salvation better than anything. They will get you saying, “Thank God, at least You’re still rescuing me from the hell I deserve. Thank God, at least You’re going to get me to heaven, anyway. Wow!” Now, you’ve got your joy back! The very thing that the enemy uses to rob us of our joy—our sins and failures—becomes a God-graced way of restoring us to the joy of HIS salvation. You don’t even have to crash and burn to get this joy back. Just have a lively sense of your sin potential and it will push you into fresh gratitude and joy any moment of the day.

The “mother lode” of our joy is the joy of His salvation. The great problem that everyone on earth has is sin and death. Death would be no problem if it weren’t for sin. Even little sins separate us from God and deserve hell. He saves us from each sin that separates us from Him (as we confess and repent) and He saves us from eternal torment in hell (when we repented and believed the “good news”). Realize any one of these three in any moment: 1) that He covers your sinfulness (with the Blood and His mercy), 2) that He is ready and willing to forgive each sin you confess, 3) that He is saving you from the unimaginable torment in hell that you deserve–and voila! You have just received another heady dose of the joy of your salvation!

With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. Isaiah 12:3

And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. Isaiah 35:10

3. The Joy of His Presence

This joy takes off once the other ones get you going. As you see (yet again) how good He is at blessing you, or forgiving you, or rescuing you, keep looking His way. Search deeper into the joy of discovering how good His love for you really is. Then keep looking to “see” how good He is in Himself—the joy-filled Lover of life. That’s the joy that will fill us in eternity. Living with Him and in Him and for Him and through Him will be an endless delight! It starts now…

In some ways this is the easiest joy of all, because whenever we have a sense of His presence drawing near to us, our hearts either melt down or explode into joy—we need do nothing at all. No blessings to count, no calling on Him for rescue, and no faith needed to turn the access keys. Just being near Him produces joy automatically! Think of it this way. When the sun comes out in summer, everyone feels the heat. That’s like the overpowering sense of Jesus’ presence coming to you. But try to feel the sun’s heat on a cold, rainy winter’s day. That’s an image describing what it means to seek the way to be drawn into His presence at all other times.

If you don’t want to be “left out in the cold,” then learning to enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise is a must.[12] We also have to practice deep surrender.[13] Anything in us that resists yielding to the Lord on any point will keep us shut out from the full joy of His presence. That’s not necessarily because He is holding our disobedience against us. Rather, our lack of surrender will keep us from getting “too close for comfort”—close enough to hear Him remind us of what He wants us to do. Try not to despair if you see inward resistance. Anything that gets in the way of getting closer to Him is something that we can call on Him to help us with.[14]

At this point the joy of the Lord gets so intimate and personal that no one can coach you how to draw nearer. It takes the Holy Spirit within us to set our hearts on fire, to show us what we need to throw into the fire, and to help us find the way to yield our entire being into His Hands. Then we can be drawn ever closer. May you go deeper and be drawn closer than you ever imagined possible!

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

Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness; you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions. Psalms 45:6-7

More to Explore about Jesus

The Name of Jesus  What’s in a name? Perhaps Shakespeare had it right that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but that’s not the way the Bible sees it. Names in scripture are filled with prophetic revelation about a person’s character and calling. To understand the hidden meaning of a person’s name is to have insight into who they are and what they represent. Even place names are wellsprings of significance. How much more the name of Jesus! And would you believe it, dear Christian, your name, too, carries treasures of meaning waiting for you to discover. See and worship what God packed into His Son’s name, then go explore your own.

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Scriptures on the Joy of the Lord

But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness. Isaiah 65:18

Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. Habakkuk 3:18

These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. John 15:11

So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. John 16:22

Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. John 16:24

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Romans 14:17

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Romans 15:13

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness. Galatians 5:22

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds. James 1:2

Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory. 1 Peter 1:8

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy. Jude 24