Joy in Life: Romans 15:13

FINDING JOY IN LIFE: Romans 15:13

When serving the Lord in Kenya while living in Kijabe I discovered one day that I really did not have joy in life or in the ministry. If “joy” is the fruit of the Holy Spirit, am I not filled with the Holy Spirit? Why don’t I have joy?

The reason was obvious. I was serving in a large denomination of thousands of churches where leaders were jealous, corrupt and ever so carnal. Dishonesty, quarrels, and power struggles abounded left and right and center. In my ministry of renewal with scores of African pastors and Bible School teachers, we were praying and working toward revival. So I experienced frustration and unhappiness when continually hearing of all this crap.

Then the Lord led me to Romans 15:13. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust him, so that you may overflow by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

I began meditating on this and it showed me the way out if my dilemma. My focus needed to be on the God of Hope, not on the carnality of God’s servants. As I meditated on that verse I came to see that the secret of joy was twofold:

First, I needed to focus on the God of Hope, trusting in Him. Joy will not come until I rejoice in the Lord. Our God of Hope is the sovereign God who is Lord of the Church, who is building his Kingdom, who is in sovereign control of all things. Through the ages God’s people have fallen away (think of the Old Testament and the history of the Christian Church), but God has not been frustrated or defeated. My joy comes because I trust in this great God who is working all things out according to his eternal purpose.

Second, the secret of joy is being empowered by God, strengthened by God, yes, being filled by the Holy Spirit. “May the God of hope, fill you with all joy and peace as you trust him, so that you might overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” The secret of hope is both from God’s enabling me by his Spirit and by my faithful response of trusting in the God of hope.

Joy and peace are the complimentary part of hope. You cannot have joy and peace without hope – not the hope that Obama gives but the hope that comes from trusting in the supreme and sovereign God of hope. When God gives you hope, the joy and peace follow. Paul does not really explain himself here but I think that the joy and peace and hope that we cry out for all comes by trusting in the God of hope. Hope gives joy and peace. And you cannot have joy and peace without hope. And all of this centers on the God of hope.

Too often we as servants of God focus on the negatives among the people whom we serve. We must not deny those negatives. To deny the negatives is to live in denial of reality. Let’s face it. God’s people throughout history have brought much reproach on the Name of Christ.

But what keeps us going with vibrancy and confidence is when we focus on the God of hope. As Isaiah said, “Even youths shall faint and grow weary and young men shall fall, but they that WAIT or HOPE in the Lord shall renew their strength…” By faith we see God at work in the midst of all the carnality. God continues to save and call out a people for himself.

Lessons Learned in Life

LESSONS LEARNED IN LIFE

Long ago I learned that there is more to success in life than IQ. We are born with an intelligent quotient but only 20% of our success in life can be attributed to IQ. Much more important is the EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE. Parents cannot determine what the IQ their children will have but they can contribute immensely in building emotional intelligence. Neither can an individual help what IQ he may have been born with, but he has every opportunity to shape his own emotional intelligence.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE consists of six components:

• Knowing one’s own feelings and using them in good decisions;

• Managing feelings to keep distress from impairing one’s ability to think;

• Motivating oneself despite persistent setbacks;

• Staying hopeful;

• Delaying gratification;

• Empathizing with others and being able to have rapport with others, cooperate and handle feelings in relationships.

If Christian with new life in Christ can exercise daily in his spiritual disciplines, such as a faithful reading and meditation on the Word of God with prayer, a Christian will develop strong emotional intelligence. Fixing his eyes on Jesus, being full of the Holy Spirit, and shunning the natural tendency to be selfish and self centered, he will be hopeful, motivated, empathetic, patient, cooperative, self restrained and disciplined.

No Christian has any excuse for having low emotional intelligence. Every Spirit filled Christian has every reason to excel with Emotional Intelligence.

Wisdom from the Past

During the past weeks I have been rummaging through many boxes of papers and clippings, collected over the past forty years, filing some, tossing others out and perplexed what to do with others. I was astonished by these prescient words of Abraham Lincoln spoken written over 160 years ago.


THE TEN COMMANDMENTS by Abraham Lincoln.

• You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.

• You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.

• You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

• You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.

• You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.

• You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.

• You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.

• You cannot establish security on borrowed money.

• You cannot build character and courage by taking away men’s initiative and independence.

• You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.