Strength for the Week - The Joy of the Lord

The Joy of the Lord

In the tenth chapter of the book of Acts, we find a story about an Italian man, Cornelius, who was a “God fearer”, that is, a Gentile who held the same beliefs as the Jews.  One day, God sends this man a vision and commands him to find Simon Peter the Apostle.  An angel of God appeared and gave Cornelius very specific information about where Peter was, and specific instructions about what to do.  You see, God wanted Simon Peter to preach the Gospel to this man and his house.  This would be the first outreach by the Apostles to a Gentile nation.

The man’s servants travel and find Simon Peter, to whom God had just given a vision about the ceremonial cleanliness of previously prohibited foods.  It was, in fact, a vision about the cleanliness of the Gentile nations, if only they would believe in Jesus Christ.  God prepared Peter for the mission ahead: preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles.

Ultimately, the servants find Peter, bring him back to their master, and he preaches the Gospel.  In a magnificent display of His authority and will, God sends the Holy Spirit on the Gentiles in the same way He did on the Apostles and the Jews.  Praise God!

But this brings to mind a question: why did God go about it this way?  Why didn’t the angel, who was so detailed in his instructions, just tell Cornelius about Jesus Christ?  Why couldn’t Peter’s vision, which repeated itself thrice, have sufficed to simply prepare him for the fact that Gentiles were being saved by other means?  Why all this trouble and travelling and instructions and repeated visions to achieve His will?

The answer is simple: joy.

You see, God has ordained in His infinite wisdom that He would use men and women to bring the Gospel to each other.  This is made no clearer than by the fact that He Himself became a man to bring the Gospel to us.  But why is this?  Because only someone who has himself experienced the joy of salvation can effectively communicate it to someone else.  Angels cannot communicate what they cannot understand.  This is why our greatest witness to the world is the joy we have in Christ.  This is why we rejoice in suffering.  This is why we count it all joy when we are persecuted for His sake.  This is why Christ Himself endured the cross: for the joy set before Him.  This is why we can, in the joy of the Lord, be satisfied in any situation we find ourselves. 

Brothers and sisters, I often will end the SFTW with a challenge or some Biblical principle and ask that we focus on it for the coming week.  This week, let’s let the joy of the Lord be our strength (Nehemiah 8:10).  Let’s let the Spirit have His way in us and plant the seeds that will grow into the fruit of joy.  We can never, EVER, focus on our responsibilities as Christians and forget that one of our great responsibilities is, as Paul commanded, to “rejoice in the Lord always; and again I say: rejoice!”

This week, let’s focus on the joy of knowing Christ, the joy of sharing Christ, and the joy of worshipping Christ. 

Amen!

         

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