The word joy, like love, is used both as a noun and a verb. Habakkuk wrote: I will joy in the God of my salvation. His poetry had said it another way in the immediate previous statement: I will rejoice in the Lord. To rejoice is to joy. The New Testament offers a number of reasons for joy, from the birth of a child, to the hearing of the word of God, to the fruit of the Spirit, and ascending to the benediction of Jude that not only ends with joy, but with exceeding joy. Joy apparently has its crescendos, its magnitudes – as does love. It is vital to remember that joy is a choice we can make. As a young person I made the mistake of thinking that Christianity was a too solemn thing, indicating some kind of retreat from life. This can lead to cloistering. The people of the world appeared to be care-free, while Christians bore the burden of righteousness. There was a sort of flesh hatred, of fear of one’s weakness that was to be dealt with in a kind of inner flagellation carried on privately. I was startled to awareness when I read Mencken’s definition of a Christian – as one: who feared that someone in the world was having a good time. Guilt was made too strong, for the individual to succeed in acquiring full peace and joy. (Only forgiveness sets free.)
It took a few years for me to understand that guilt was something to be managed. Guilt would always be a threat, because mankind is flawed. Even eminent saints wrestled with guilt. Before discovering and applying justification by faith, Luther was endlessly confessing his sins and the guilt of them. He needed what all persons need in daily forgiveness, balancing out the tenacity of negative influences upon our lives, and so to get on with the business of living for the Lord, who accommodates the fact that we are dust made alive. My relief came in the realization that each day I might ask for the Holy Spirit, for his indwelling to meet the problems that every pilgrim must face – if he/she is to make progress, for me to arrive at the end to the desired haven. The main idea here is that guilt can be properly managed. It can be greatly weakened, not likely lost entirely.
Freedom and joy are tied together in some way. Do you notice how, on the Fourth of July there is such an emphasis on freedom and joy? We would sense loss if our civil freedoms were taken away. We would never stand for it. Many peoples have been so shabbily treated by their cultures that they do not know, because of conditioning, what it is that they do not have. They live without the privilege of conscience, of movement, of self-independence, of respect. The great tragedy is even more important – religious liberty has been denied to them. They do not know what they missed in history. What privilege one feels when serving God out of personal response to the offer of salvation generated from God’s love. Love returned is not forced, but wooed. It is not someone else’s decision, but my own with the Lord. I am alone with God, to be joined with all others who love him in spirit and in truth. This is made tangible in that, since I cannot, even in my freedom, reach God, he reached me in the person of Jesus Christ. Even in my freedom, he was there to assist that freedom to responsibility, eternal joy. With that I walk with my heart up, strengthened by the aid of God’s Holy Spirit. It is in freedom that I can come closer to revealing who I am, and express my own meaning even to self and others – and understanding of God. We are protected in law from any personal excesses of an individual that would take away freedom for all. It is interesting that ancient Scripture accents everything that mankind desires in millennia past, but some only taken seriously in recent eras, and even that is sometimes spotty, or not found in some parts of the world. Christianity holds out for truth, love, peace, progress, freedom, meaning, values, and the best joys of righteous life. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020