So, today we are going to discuss joy. I’ll be honest, when the Lord led me to write on joy, I didn’t really understand why. When you think of someone that joyful, you tend to think of someone that’s super giddy and energetic. They always have a smile, and they’re always excited. That person simply isn’t me. I didn’t feel qualified to write on joy, and I felt lost.

But I now am assured that you don’t need to be energetic and wildly happy all the time, to know and feel joy. You don’t need to feel “unable” in this area, as I too have felt. We can also have and experience joy, regardless of our circumstances, and regardless of our personal expressions.

Joy should not be thought of as the expressions we see in our day to day. But it’s something so much more than that.

Joy Defined

The first thing that I do when I come to a word like this, or goodness, or gentleness, words that I can’t define without using the actual word, is I go to the Greek and Hebrew definitions. They typically give much greater insight into the word than what our English dictionary does.

When I came to the Hebrew word for Joy found in books like Nehemiah and 1 Chronicles, I found the word, “chedvah”, which means “joy”.

Other alternative words for joy such as “simchah” and “sameach”, result in definitions like glad and merry. Which are very similar definitions of joy that we are already used to. You can find all the definitions at Biblehub.com.

What we must do now, is look at the different definitions of joy in scripture. This will give us a biblical look and definition of joy that will help us understand how we can have and experience joy, the Lord’s way.

The two examples that we are most familiar with and are going to use here today are in Nehemiah 8:10 and Galatians 5:22.

“…is your strength”

Certainly, all or most of us have heard the term “the joy of the Lord is my strength”. But how many of us have read the book that it comes from?

Nehemiah is a great book, and it has a great story behind it. It tells of the rebuilding of the Jerusalem walls. It also gives us another angle at the rebuilding of Jerusalem, with the restoration of the temple and the law being presented within this story and the book of Ezra.

Nehemiah is in charge of the rebuilding of the walls, and Ezra in charge of the telling of the Law. When the Jewish people, after not having heard the law in much time, get to hear Ezra teach the law, they start to weep. The law is the pinnacle of their people at the time, it’s the focal point. To hear it again must feel both invigorating and convicting at the same time.

When they begin to weep, we are brought to Nehemiah 8:10.

“Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”” (Nehemiah 8:10).

The people were weeping for the law, but Nehemiah gave them firm direction. “Do not be grieved.” How many of us need to hear that? Often, we are weeping in this world. Whether it’s because of the political turmoil, sickness, or strife, we all grieve.

But it doesn’t need to be so. We don’t need to experience grief and sadness. We can experience joy, and joy everlasting, because it’s not our joy that we have to experience. In a world full of grief, we can lean on an eternal rock and experience the true gladness and merry of the Lord.

Not our Joy, but His

That verse is clear. It is the joy of the Lord, that is our strength, not our own. We try too often to rely on our own joy and our own strength. In fact, the law made the Jews dependent on their selves for satisfaction and for life. But God doesn’t want us to depend on ourselves and own our strength. He wants us to rely on him, for strength, for joy, for satisfaction, and for life.

God is inviting us to experience something greater than we could experience on our own. His is inviting us into his joy. While we will certainly get into how we can experience that gladness and merry, I think it’s best to first make sure we aren’t unknowingly relying on our own joy for our strength.

Here are a few signs that your joy, isn’t His.

• It depends on your circumstances.
• It wavers.
• When the feelings fade, it fades.
• If depression, grief, and sadness are more common than happiness, gladness, and merry.

If you would say that your joy is applicable with these descriptions, there’s a good chance that you dwell on and in your own joy, not the Lord’s.

Fruits of the Spirit

The next passage that we can look to for our “defintion” of joy is found in Galatians 5. This is another popular passage of scripture, perhaps the most popular in fact. It tells us of the fruits of the spirit, and shortly after, the fruits of the flesh. It is incredibly popular, but unfortunately, I believe most use it unproductively.

Let’s look at the scripture.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23).

The passage gives us a list of characteristics, among them are love, joy, and peace, to name a few. This passage is incredible. But the way that people use it, is not very productive.

Oftentimes, a lot of us believers try to do all of the fruits or portray them in our lives. We try really hard to be patient, or really hard to be loving to our siblings or neighbors. Unfortunately, because in our flesh, we aren’t prefect, we fail each and every one. We can’t always be good, or joyful, or lovely. That is why the fruits shouldn’t be used as a checklist. They should be used and seen, as fruits.

An apple tree doesn’t try really hard to produce apples. Instead, it produces apples because they are a byproduct of the tree’s DNA. The tree is an apple tree, so when treated correctly, it will produce apples. That’s just what is in its DNA.

Likewise, the fruits are a byproduct of what is in our spirit. They come from an overflow of our spiritual selves. In Christ, in our spirit, we are joyful, and patient, and lovely. But in our flesh, even when we’re trying really hard, we are not. So, joy, must flow from our spirit, not from anything else.

Joy is a Choice

This brings us to my last point, which is that joy is our choice. We get to decide whether or not we experience joy. We decide if we get to experience strength.

It isn’t our choice because we can choose to ignore our problems. I’m not asking you to fake it, and act as if you didn’t have anything going on. I’m also not saying that we can go into lockdown and not let anyone or anything in so that no trauma comes in.

But it is our choice, because we decide if the fruits of the spirit flow in our life or not. The fruits are already inside of us, in our spirit. Our spiritual DNA already has every single fruit of the spirit on the inside of it. The fruit is there, ready to flow in our lives. But if we are in walking in the spirit, then the fruit will not present itself.

One must walk in the spirit and abide in Christ in both mind and spirit, to fully walk in the joy of the Lord. It is completely our choice. We decide whether or not we abide in Christ. We decide if we spend time with God. Likewise, we decide if we experience joy, and joy incomprehensible.

Final Thoughts

Joy is awesome and it can be experienced by everyone, every day, everywhere. It can be experienced whether our situations are horrible, or whether they are great, all the same. But when we try to experience and depend on our own joy, we won’t experience the same joy that the Lord wants us to experience. In other words, we won’t experience the joy of the Lord.

Joy is a fruit of the spirit, or a byproduct of the spirit. It’s an overflow of what’s already in our spirit. In our spirits right now, there is love, peace, goodness, gentleness, and more. But many of us don’t ever get to see those fruits come to fruition in our lives.

We must abide in Christ and walk in the spirit to truly experience the joy that the Lord has. We need to crucify the flesh with its desires, and abide in Christ, not only in spirit, but in mind as well. That is the way to experience the joyful life that the Lord has for us.

Have a great week!