January 10

Joyful Christians

“And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy: And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God” (Luke 24:52-53).
“Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, rejoice” (Phil. 4:4).

Evidently God means His people to be enthusiastic, buoyant, glad. A joyless Christian is a stumblingblock to the world and an offence to his brethren and to God.   One of the chief secrets of the success of the early Christians was that they were filled with gladness which was all-satisfying. Men judge of religion by those who are considered to possess it, and they will embrace or reject it according to the manner in which it is exhibited before them.They are attracted more by radiant faces than by eloquence or argument or any other human power. When we show them something better than they have and carry about the advertisement of a gladness which rises superior to all circumstances, we shall win men for Christ. 


The joy of the Lord is our strength. The average type of Christian life will have to be raised before there can be any great advance of the Kingdom of Christ. Many of God’s people have just as much gloom and depression and as many cares and anxieties as the people of the world. “How is it,” said a godly minister to the writer recently, “that we so very seldom meet with a really joyful Christian?” It is certain we do not find in our churches so much of the exultant, exuberant joy which our fathers had.
(From New Testament Holiness by Thomas Cook. Used by permission of the Epworth Press.)

Not sadly, Lord, I take Thy choice,
Not fearfully I take my way;
My trustful hand in Thine I lay,
And walk beside Thee and rejoice.
—Lord Alfred Tennyson.

Remember your life is to be a singing life. It has to be one of perpetual joy bubbling up from the wells of salvation.
This world is God’s grand cathedral for you. You are to be one of God’s choristers, and there is to be a continual sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving going up from your heart, with which God shall be continually well pleased.
And there should be not only the offering of the lips, but the surrender of the life with joy. Yes, with joy and thankfulness, and not with hesitancy and constraint. Every faculty of our nature should be presented to Him in gladsome service, for the Lord Jehovah is our song and delight, as well as our salvation and strength.—W. Hay Aitken.

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