Devotional
Nearly everyone knows what joy is, and nearly everyone yearns to experience joy. Yet study after study reveal that Americans today are more dissatisfied with their lives than ever before. The most hopeless and dissatisfied among us are teens and young adults. Naturally, the question arises, how do we, as a society, feel joy? I do not claim to have the answer to this question myself. But what I will do is point us towards the word of God which does have answers. What better time is there to seek true joy than during this season of Advent?
The first scripture I want to look at is Psalms 37:4. “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” What are the “desires of the heart”? I would argue that it is to experience true joy. So then, how do we get to that point? By “delighting ourselves in the Lord”. You see, this verse contains a command followed by a promise. However, what many miss is that the command is the condition of the promise; if you don’t follow the command, you are unlikely to receive the promise attached to it. If we want to quench the desires of our hearts, we must first delight in the Lord.
In John 14:15, Jesus tells his disciples about what it means to delight in the Lord. In order to delight in something, you must first love it. Jesus states, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” What we find is that the biblical understanding of joy is inextricably linked to obedience. Obedience is how a Christian experiences joy. The problem is that, as humans, we collectively don’t want to submit to a higher authority. We want to be individualistic, autonomous beings. For many, the word ‘obedience’ has a negative connotation to it. Yet obedience to the one who is perfect, all-knowing, compassionate, content, unchangeable, and wholly good – that is not a negative thing – at all. Out of all things, that is the one source you would want to be obedient to.
So, how can we find joy, both individually and societally? Through obedience to Christ. If you want to know what that looks like in precise detail, I encourage you to read about the life of Jesus in the Gospels where God sent his son as a living example of perfect obedience. Yet knowing that you and I would fall short of that example, and sin against a wholly-just God, Christ died on the cross on our behalf to make a way for us back to God. As humans, we were not created to be autonomous and wholly self-sustaining. We were created by God and for God; for obedience to Him in which there is no shadow of turning.
Rev. Dr. Preston Davis
