Transformed for constant joy and peace!

A PERSON OF JOY AND PEACE - Joy is natural in the presence of God, whose deepest essence is love. Joy is a pervasive sense of well-being that is deeper and broader than any pleasure. It is a basic element of inner transformation into Christlikeness and the outer life that flows from it. 

Thus Jesus could say to his closest friends on the night before his crucifixion: “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full” (John 15:11). Having your joy “full” is the first line of defense against weakness, failure, and disease of mind and body. 

But even when they break through into your life, “the joy of the LORD is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10). We must not be passive and allow joy to dissipate by looking backward at our sins and failures or forward at what might happen to us or inward at our struggles with work, responsibilities, temptations, and deficiencies. In doing this, we place our hopes in the wrong thing, namely ourselves. 

It is our option to look to the greatness and goodness of God and what he will do in our lives. Peace is the assurance that things will turn out well. We no longer strive, inwardly or outwardly, to create some outcome. To be at peace with God and others is a great attainment and depends on graces far beyond ourselves and our own efforts. 

When others do not extend the grace and mercy I need, I have to draw on the abundance of it in God. “Who is this that is condemning me?” I remind myself, “Jesus even died for me, was raised from the dead, and is now standing up for me before God” (Romans 8:34, PAR). Assurance of this allows me to “pursue peace with all men” (Hebrews 12:14). Even in cases where struggle exists between others and me, there does not have to be a struggle within me. I may have to resist others, but I do not have to make things come out right. I do not have to be mad at those whose course of action I resist. 

The secret to this peace, as great apprentices of Jesus have long known, is being abandoned to God. Since God is love and is so great, I live beyond harm in his hands. There is nothing that can happen to me that will not turn out for my good. Nothing. Because of this, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee” (Isaiah 26:3, KJV).