Christian joy - how to achieve it?
Christian joy - how to achieve it?
Christian joy - why does the Bible call for joy and how to achieve it?
Strict, gloomy, unhappy. You can often hear from secular people that believers look exactly like this. Yes, perhaps we ourselves sometimes give reason to think so. Meanwhile, in the Holy Scriptures, joy is not just proclaimed - it is commanded. Rejoice in the Lord always; And again I say: rejoice (Phil 4:4) - calls the holy Apostle Paul. The Lord Himself commands us to rejoice and be glad in the face of persecution (Matthew 5:12), to rejoice that our names are written in heaven (Luke 10:20). Among the fruits of the Holy Spirit, in second place - right after love - is joy: And the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control (Gal 5:22, 23). The kingdom of God is characterized by joy: For the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17).
It would take a long time to list all the biblical calls to Christian joy - these days it’s easy to install a program like “biblical quote” and type the corresponding word in the search bar. This command may seem strange to us. We are accustomed to the fact that joy or despondency is the result of some external influences beyond our control. We won a million in the lottery - we are happy, we found out that it was a mistake, we are upset. Sometimes people try to please themselves with something - shopping, entertainment, food, well, if not drinking.
But Christian joy is commanded many times in Scripture. It is something that depends on our will; something we should do and not just experience. After all, it’s the same with the commandment about love. In modern language, love is a feeling, emotion, experience that is not in our control; The Bible, however, commands us to love.
I want to, but I won’t!
What are we talking about? Is joy in our power? Indirectly - yes. A person cannot instantly create mature ears of corn in his field, but he must work, plant seeds and pull out weeds. Joy requires patience and perseverance, it must be cultivated like a plant, and, very importantly, it must not be killed.
Our emotions are connected to our relationships. If you meet someone you love - or at least have a friendly liking for - you will be happy. If you meet an unpleasant person, be upset. This reaction is almost involuntary. What is arbitrary is the choice: to cultivate love and sympathy or, on the contrary, irritation and hostility. A certain attitude towards people, towards works of culture, towards the country, towards nature, towards life in general will give rise to joy or despondency.
Christian joy - creating it in yourself - is work, it requires perseverance and perseverance. We cannot take it on, much less succeed in it, without the help of the Holy Spirit - but we must at least stop resisting Him.
The paradox of our fallen nature is that we desperately want happiness, but we do everything to become unhappy. So it is with joy: yes, we want joy, but at the same time we do everything to kill it.
What kills joy?
Joy kills sin. Perhaps the most striking example is the same alcohol and drugs, which do not increase the joy in a person’s life. The short euphoria is followed by an even deeper emotional decline. People who advise a person in a state of depression and despondency to “drink to cheer up” are terribly mistaken: the largest number of suicides are committed precisely under the influence of alcohol. It only aggravates despondency and drives a person to despair. But this is true of any sin: a person thinks that he will finally find joy, that stolen money or fornication will make him happy, but this again turns out not to be the case. People often say that Christianity requires giving up the "joys of life." This is exactly the opposite - Christianity requires you to give up what kills joy.
One of the sins that kills Christian joy immediately, directly and directly is grumbling. Angry claims to God, to people, to circumstances, grumbling dissatisfaction with everything, a carefully fueled feeling of personal resentment and neglect. Paradox: a person grumbles because he is unhappy, but he cannot be happy precisely because he grumbles. No change in circumstances can help him - it’s just that the person who used to grumble about the porridge being too thin will grumble about the diamonds being too small. Joy is impossible without a humble and grateful heart - as the apostle says, always rejoice. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).
There are other things that kill Christian joy - anger, rage and condemnation towards other people. Look on the Internet - how angry people are! And how sad they are!
On social networks it is very clear how people (including ourselves) cultivate a state that is completely incompatible with joy - irritation, impotent anger, fears, hatred and contempt. It seems that the kindest and most pious thing that exists on social networks are photographs of cats. Looking at the cat, you can smile; he is fluffy, his owner or mistress loves him. The rest is mostly an expression of bitterness, anger, hostility and contempt. “They (this could be anyone, from “Putinists” to “Euromaidanists” and from fundamentalists to renovationists) are scoundrels and scoundrels, enemies and villains. They are sharpening their teeth and want to eat us. These are bastards!”
A person opens a browser to swallow a new portion of despondency, hostility and anger, and, in turn, add his own portion of irritation and hostility to the general atmosphere. This happens as if automatically - no one sets a deliberate goal: “Today I’ll work on destroying joy and trust, I’ll plant despondency and anger.”
But in reality this is exactly what happens. Original sin means, in particular, that all our default settings are set incorrectly, and if we follow them, they will turn us into the inhabitants of hell. We must consciously reject despondency and anger and choose love and joy.
Therefore, the path to Christian joy is repentance. Awareness of your sins, confession of them, efforts aimed at correcting your life. When we are indignant at the sins of others, we become increasingly despondent; when we realize ours and repent of them, we change and become able to rejoice. We become the soil in which joy grows.
How to get rid of guilt?
I once saw a video about how much a person’s appearance can change the way others see him - and how he sees himself. The dirty, overgrown tramp in rags was washed, cut, shaved and dressed in clean and decent clothes - and he began to look completely different, even the expression on his face became completely different. He no longer looked like a tramp in appearance, did not feel like a tramp - and was no longer a tramp. He left his old life - as a new Christian does. But turning to Christ is not dressing up; this is a very profound change in everything.
We acquire not only new beliefs, but also new life. The Word of God compares this to a new birth—or even a new creation. Let us remember the words of the Apostle Peter: repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins; and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). Baptism means not only the forgiveness of sins, but also the gift of the Holy Spirit - God himself enters our lives to gently, patiently and at the same time powerfully change it from the inside.
Our trouble is not only that we are guilty, but also that we are spoiled - and we will create hell in any paradise where we are allowed. And so the Holy Spirit works on our transformation and healing to make us from hellish creatures into heavenly ones. As St. Augustine said, “God creates us, that is, He forms and creates us, not so that we are men, which He has already done, but so that we are good people, which He now does by His grace, so that we are a new creation in Christ Jesus."
True conversion always manifests itself in life change. The Holy Apostle Paul writes in his letter to the Corinthians: Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor wicked people, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God (1 Cor 6:9-11).
The holy apostle writes about people who led a clearly immoral, and even criminal, lifestyle, trampling on the commandments of God. He warns that such a life leads to destruction. But after these harsh words, he writes that this is exactly what some of the Corinthian Christians were - but now they are “washed, sanctified, and justified,” apparently leaving past outrages in the past. These people repented - they broke with their previous sins, put them out the door, lowered them down the stairs, kicked them out and told them not to return. On the one hand, repentance is an event. Once in life we make a decision to trust and submit to the Lord, come under His authority, and take the path of salvation. We admit to Him that we were wrong when we tried to manage our lives ourselves, we ask for forgiveness - and accept it through the Sacrament of Confession.
But, on the other hand, repentance is also a process. We are sailing on a stormy and dangerous sea, we are constantly being carried away, we must always return to the right course. When we sin, we must admit it, ask for forgiveness and accept it.
In ordinary language, the word "repentance" is often associated with feelings of guilt and humiliation; in the Holy Scriptures it is connected, exactly the opposite, with deliverance from guilt. For example, in Psalm 31, a believer talks about how he was burdened by unconfessed sin: When I was silent, my bones grew old because of my daily groaning, for day and night Your hand was heavy on me; My freshness has vanished, as in the summer drought (Ps. 31:3,4).
But when he confessed, he found peace and joy: But I revealed my sin to You and did not hide my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my crimes to the Lord,” and You took away from me the guilt of my sin. For this reason, every righteous person will pray to You at the time of need, and then the flood of many waters will not reach him. You are my cover: You protect me from sorrow, surround me with the joys of deliverance. “I will admonish you, I will guide you on the path you should follow; I will guide you; My eye is upon you” (Ps 32:5-8).
The Word of God repeatedly and persistently convinces us that anyone who turns to the Lord in repentance and faith will be forgiven and accepted - no matter how long or how severely he has sinned. As God says through the Prophet, I will blot out your iniquities like a cloud, and your sins like a cloud; turn to Me, for I have redeemed you (Isaiah 44:22).
God forgives joyfully, willingly, and forever: For this is to Me as the waters of Noah: just as I swore that the waters of Noah would come no more to the earth, so I swore not to be angry with you and not to reproach you. The mountains will be removed and the hills will be shaken, but My lovingkindness will not depart from you, and My covenant of peace will not be removed, says the Lord who has mercy on you (Isaiah 54:9, 10).
But Christian life is not only (and not even so much) deliverance from sins, but, as St. Seraphim of Sarov said, “the acquisition of the Holy Spirit,” one of the fruits of which is joy.
Life against the sky
Christian joy does not mean ignoring the sin and tragedy of our fallen world. Christ and the apostles knew what sin, malice, injustice and suffering were much better than us. For them, the Crucifixion was not a picture in a book, but something they saw with their own eyes - and experienced themselves. Joy means that we live in a much larger picture of reality, where everything that happens is perceived against a certain background. We know that the world was created by God and God directs it to a specific goal. That God loves His fallen creation and is constantly working to restore it - and He will achieve His goal. The universe and the human race will be restored to much greater joy and glory than what we lost in the Fall. We know that above us there is Heaven, filled with boundless love and jubilation.
We know something very important about the world we live in—it is a created, fallen, and redeemed world that God will lead to eternal joy. And this eternal joy is already shining through the veil of this world - and it is in its light that we should see the world, and ourselves, and everything around us. As the apostle says, So, if you have been raised with Christ, then seek the things that are above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God; Set your mind on things above, and not on earthly things (Col. 3:1, 2). Right now, with us and above us are Angels, Saints, the Mother of God, Christ. We are in a huge gathering of friends, brothers, fathers and mothers. We do not see them with our bodily eyes - but we will see them when we leave the body and settle down with the Lord - but they see us very well. And the glances from heaven directed at us are full of love and joy. They see what we don’t see yet, but already know. Christ rose again and gave us eternal life. By faith we settle in this world of eternal joy and by faith we bring this joy to others. And faith is not an experience or daydreaming; it is a daily effort by which we abandon lies, despondency and anger and choose truth, love and joy.
Sergiy Khudiev
Rescue Canaries
Imagine this picture.
Coal mine workers know that dangerous gases accumulate silently and unnoticed in tunnels. Carbon monoxide can cause asphyxiation, and methane is explosive.
In 2006, a methane explosion killed 12 people at the Sago mine in West Virginia. In 1906, about 1,100 miners died at the Courrières mine in France during a series of explosions.
But at the dawn of the coal industry, a very simple and effective solution to this problem was found: while working in the mine, miners took canaries with them. The body of these birds is very sensitive to air quality. As the bright yellow birds sang and chirped, the miners knew they were safe. As soon as the level of gas concentration in the air increased, the canaries stopped singing, swayed on their perches and fell to the floor of the cage.
The joy of a Christian is like this little bird. One of the first signs of the consequences of sin or doctrinal distortion is the loss of joy in Christ. When your heart stops singing, this is one of the first signals to take a closer look at it and what you believe.
The disease of our time
A person can live in such a way that he neither rejoices in joy nor grieves in sorrow. There are also sickly, suspicious people who aggravate their situation too much and believe that they have the heaviest cross to bear. There are still fewer people who know how to truly spiritually rejoice.
But, probably, it would be wrong to pose the question: what is more in spiritual life - sorrow or joy. The Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem—is it sorrow or joy? And Christianity is all that. After all, “through the Cross joy came to the whole world”[2], so here it is in no way possible to separate one from the other.
The question is not to go to extremes: joy is the joy that illuminates a person’s world, and sadness should not become despondency... Sadness and despondency are different things.
In general, despondency is a diagnosis of the modern world. Dejection, emptiness... World culture, starting from the first years of the twentieth century, gradually turned into a culture of despondency, albeit with very bright, highly artistic images.
There is human nature, and the laws of this nature are known: a person is close to God - he is full of life, a person retreats from God - he is close to death. Here comes humanity. It lives according to exactly the same laws: as a person is, so is humanity - society. And global things - such as culture, social life - are naturally built on this basis. Culture allows us, as if using a litmus test, to look at what is happening in humanity now. For example, underground culture is a culture of despondency and depression, even if it sometimes blends into a certain Christian context. Postmodernism is a typical, clearly defined complete depression and such cynicism that gives rise to even greater despondency. The absence of any guidelines at all, the absence of any spiritual work, all this pop music, fashion and glamor is also an obvious sign of despondency. A special idea of despondency is the popularity of “Curve Mirrors”, “Full House” and the like. “All-laughing hell”[3], which was horrified when the Lord entered it. “All-laughing hell” takes on such a face... Yes, this is a given - the way it is today. But let us remember that the Lord still broke hell and won!
Joy is the antidote to religiosity
How does joy centered on Christ and given by the Spirit keep us safe? There are two aspects to this:
First, joy keeps us in our service to God. If you have lost your joy, this may be the first sign that your ministry is no longer glorifying Christ. Joy keeps you from serving God with wrong motives.
George Muller was an evangelist and director of an orphanage in Bristol, England. He is known for his outstanding faith and effective ministry. He cared for more than 10,000 orphans throughout his life. And joy was his main daily priority.
“I saw more clearly than ever that the main and greatest goal that I should strive for every day is to have joy in the Lord in my soul. The first thing I should be concerned about is not how much I can do for the Lord, but how my soul can remain in joy and grow in it. Diligent service to Christ - even caring for thousands of orphans - can become only a formal obligation if we lose the warmth of our love for Christ. Joy keeps us from becoming religious in our service.”
