The New Law of First Response

I have just preached on Christian Joy, a fruit not a product of personality. The “joy of Thy Salvation”, as firstfruits joy that should never leave us - the worst that can now befall is that we die and wake up in paradise. The joy of ongoing friendship with the Spirit - the firstfruit of this love relationship, according to Galatians 5:22. And there is even “the joy set before us”, even as it was set before Jesus – surely the fullness of a full joy, waiting for us in glory.

And all of these are gifts, which we receive by faith! Salvation, the sanctifying work of the Spirit and Heaven itself. We deserve none of them, but in Christ they are ours! A scandal, but a true scandal!

However, I must exercise my faith. And often, faith is opposed in scripture by the word “sight”. We walk by faith not by sight. This implies simply that often the things we see and hear and experience with our natural senses must be overridden, for faith to operate. And that is not always easy. With pressures and financial crises and billboards shouting and friends living for their own pleasures and profit.

 
So I realized afresh this week that I can surrender my joy, this Spirit-fruit.

When do we do it most? Is it when a disaster strikes? Or when a stranger insults us or scares us in the traffic? I think not. I think for all of us humans, it is when those closest to us – friends, family and leaders – disappoint us. When something is said, or not said. When someone refuses to listen, or just cannot comprehend or empathize. When you feel neglected, not regarded, no-good.

So in reality, I surrender my joy when I allow MAN to fill the gap that only God should fill. Momentarily, man can almost appear to be able to be a god to us. But it is a vapor. 

Does this mean we become reclusive, bitter, alienated from family and society? By no means – this is where faith kicks in. But to love the unloveable (starting with myself), I need to know that which is unknowable by knowledge alone. I approach Christ and my Christianity by faith alone. And by faith I love, reach out, forgive, heal, pray for my enemies, and feed them too. By faith I keep giving even though there may be no response. This keeps others free of my manipulations, and also enriches my eternity.

Except by faith alone, how else could we appropriate Jesus' words in Luke 6, “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets”?!

So here, Faith is what safeguards my deeper joy. A joy sourced in a deep subterranean chamber called the Christ-life. Where His salvation, His applause, His rewards are enough.

Without this Aquamarine Pool of Coolness beneath, I dry out, burn up, inflame myself with offences.

A PRAYER:
Father, show me more of Jesus, the hope of glory. I have placed my deeper invisible hopes in false things, temporal things, fading things, self-things. I have placed my hope in MAN, my co-creation, and my hopes have been disappointed. I have trusted in MAN as a firstfruits trust, and I have reaped within myself the fruit of such idolatry. I have listened for MAN’s applause, even lived in the prediction of it – who will think what of me when I say or do or move? – and I have inherited the wind that MAN brings.

You love MAN, but you know what is in the heart of MAN too. I have had to learn the hard way. Now I know a little bit better why you pronounce a Woe upon those who “go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in the multitude of their chariots and in the great strength of their horsemen, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel, or seek help from the LORD.”

It was wicked MEN who helped wicked MEN put Jesus to death by nailing Him to the cross. I can only draw from MAN as he is drawing from Jesus. It is Christ in me that is the hope of glory, my hope of glory. “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me”.

So now you are taking my prayers seriously, Father, for the image of Christ to be quickened in me. Not dead or graven images, repetitions and regurgitations, laws and formulae, no. But the living and quick Jesus, active and speaking and breathing and supping within. A real Friend and me in a real friendship. and my source of Joy.

I want to know you more. I want to see your face. I want to feel your touch. But even deeper beneath the experimental world of the Holy Spirit in me, is the Life Force of God, the universal gravitational pull of Divine Love. May my experience of you always be undergirded by my firm and unwavering belief in You. Always. May I not go down to Egypt for help, nor delight in the strength of the horse or the legs of a man. Your delight is in those who fear You, in those who trust in Your unfailing love. Even in the sad times, the desparate times, may I find my joy in You. Show me what David saw, when he exclaimed, "You have given me greater joy than when their grain and new wine abounds".

May weak and pitiful me be found among that number, when the saints go marching in. And well before that too. Even today.

I am Yours, but now You must be mine. I have been an unwitting participant in grace, salvation and the power of God. But now I will to be witting, active, partnering, awake, alive in Christ, not asleep in the light.

Grant me “the fullness of joy” today. That I may know afresh by revelation the joy of Thy salvation, the joy of the Spirit’s friendship, and the completion of joy in the age to come. In Jesus’ Name, amen.

The Christian, by William Cowper

Honor and happiness unite
To make the Christian's name a praise;
How fair the scene, how clear the light,
That fills the remnant of His days!

A kingly character He bears,
No change His priestly office knows;
Unfading is the crown He wears,
His joys can never reach a close.

Adorn'd with glory from on high,
Salvation shines upon His face;
His robe is of the ethereal dye,
His steps are dignity and grace.

Inferior honors He disdains,
Nor stoops to take applause from earth;
The King of kings Himself maintains
The expenses of His heavenly birth.

The noblest creature seen below,
Ordain'd to fill a throne above;
God gives him all He can bestow,
His kingdom of eternal love!

My soul is ravished at the thought!
Methinks from earth I see Him rise!
Angels congratulate His lot,
And shout Him welcome to the skies.