Join in the Joy
Through the years, I have frequently preached about joy. It is more than an emotion (although it includes emotion); rather, it is a settled attitude, a stable and sturdy approach to life that focuses us on the things that matter now and forever. Joy is much greater and much more powerful than happiness, which is event or circumstance driven. There is nothing wrong with happiness. It is certainly better than unhappiness. Also, we have different personalities. For example, my wife is happy-go-lucky. Of course, she has every reason to be, being married to me. However, not everyone can be married to me. We need something more substantial than happiness; that something is joy. (I will be using this opening paragraph for each of the brief messages in this series. The following material will change daily.)
Earlier this week, we touched upon the joy of the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17). Joy is an attribute of God; thus, it is an attribute (more precisely, a perfection) of God the Holy Spirit. The Biblical teaching regarding the Trinity is, fortunately, inescapable: we worship One God in Three Persons. Let us remember that the Holy Spirit, just like the Father and the Son, is a person; that is, He possesses personality – divine personality. He is forceful, but He is not a force. He is fully God.
We will be spending at least a few days considering the joy of the Holy Spirit. To avoid thinking of the Spirit as somehow subordinate or inferior to the Father and the Son, let us remember that only God is holy; therefore, the name Holy Spirit is an ever-present reminder of His full deity. I find it helpful to frequently refer to Him as God the Holy Spirit; that designation makes it harder to slip into weak or even heretical ideas about the personhood of the Holy Spirit. A force or substance cannot have joy, but God the Holy Spirit can and does. Let us be thankful that He is the immediate and indwelling source of our joy.