Joying

Although I have read the above scriptural verse many times, I only recently caught the Apostle’s whole meaning: that the fullness of joy he identifies in his readers related to some degree to his.  There is something infectious in joy.  We get it from others, and we give it to others.  Those who understand the matter recognize that those who have joy are winners.  The winning volume is greater than the losing volume.  Some winning is close, as the San Francisco Giants won the seventh game of the World Series in Baseball, three runs to two – in the 2014 World Series – one run in seven games of many runs on both sides. One run did in the Kansas City Royals who left the field in some despair.  The Giants were as elated as though they had just completed building the Golden Gate Bridge.  In reality it was a win by a hair, but winning was the main purpose.  The parable is for the Christian to be understood in something of a similar perception.  God guarantees the win for his team.  Some will gain it by a run.  Others will gain it in a blow-out.  These latter will sense a fullness, because they found the resources to overcome with much to spare.  To win with large margins to spare is easier and better than by the narrowest of margins.  In either event there is joy.  The win is for all, but those with fullness are more influential and persuasive than those who were limited to the squeakers.  We can, as Christians, be assured from Scripture that we will win when the last out is made.  After that assurance the joyful person must ask: By what margin?  God wants us to win big.  If he didn’t want that personal win, the manuscript of Scripture would have been greatly reduced.  It is clear from Scripture that we are competent to be winners. (1 Corinthians 9:24-27)  God expects us to set appropriate goals for our lives, win them, and find joy in them – high exultation in the context of nature perhaps signified in nothing more than a wreath (corruptible crowns like blue ribbons or medals) but a crown incorruptible that offers joy forevermore.  Joy is God’s replacement for pride.  It serves truly.

We remember that the word rejoice is a derivative of joy.  The Apostle Paul commands, Rejoice evermore.  (1 Thessalonians 5:16)  What that really means is that Christians with genuine joy are currently doing something they will do in heaven.  Heaven does visit earth in the gifts of God to the human spirit.  There is a sense in which this is solemnizing in that against anything that natural life may offer to my life context,

I am to rejoice – meeting human context and winning with spiritual context.  Sometimes it comes as a learned response, and sometimes it takes prevailing prayer to achieve for victorious living.  It is always there for the taking if I have learned how to appropriate the gifts of God.  Joyful persons are futuristic. We find significant understanding in verses like, Hebrews 12:2 – Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.  There is pause in us who deplore the treatment of Jesus by authorities only to discover that he encountered it all in a spirit of joy.  Peter lashed out with a weapon severing the ear of the soldier taking Jesus to ugly death.  The scene changed when Peter was embarrassed that Jesus sided with the soldier, healed the ear, and subjected himself to the soldier.  It was as much as to say to Peter and the soldier: You will not deprive me of this joy to fulfill the plan of God to offer hope to all who will accept this love and redemptive meaning.  (Does human art ever catch the solitary meaning of Jesus on that day?  Artists do catch the tragedy.  Is the triumph of joy to be found there?)  For the joy that is set before us we too evade whatever is negative (shameful) to our lives and vision.  Our joy is made larger in our vision for the future.  What we experience in the natural context is transitory even if it is pleasant to us, as much of it is, but only that which is eternal is of importance – evermore.  Our earthly sojourn ought to take as important the treatment of currency in the mortal and how it is to be lived.  We all must live, in finding the congruity between that which passes and that which endures.  If all goes well for joy within us, pre-eminence of immortal awards become generative to give us joy evermore.  It is common to assign Christmas to be the most joyful day of the year, and appearing very deliberately so to accent that under God-with-us. joy is, or ought to be, a pervasive context for our daily lives.