Joy.

Week Three of Advent

(As I rest over the holiday season, I am reposting the first Advent series I ever wrote. )

And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10).

Joy is a resounding theme at Christmas.

We sing songs about joy.

Stores market decorations, and toys, and the latest new gadgets—all promising a flashy kind of joy.

But is that all joy is? Fleeting moments of happiness, here for a season and gone with the next?

Galatians 5:22-23 says that joy is one of the fruits of the Spirit—an outward product of internal change. And in his article The Fruit of the Spirit: Joy, John W. Ritenbaugh writes, “Biblical joy is inseparable from our relationship with God.”

Friend, we were created to find enduring joy in God.

But humankind’s relationship with God was broken, torn apart by sin. We needed a Savior. Someone to pay the price for our sin and restore that relationship. And so Jesus was born, and the angels declared His arrival “good news of great joy!”

When we surrender to Jesus as the Lord of our lives, we are made right with God and declared His son or daughter. And therein lies our joy.

Yes, true joy is something wild and deep and slightly mysterious that grows inside of us as we grow in relationship with the God who loves us. It wells up deep inside from a protected place—a place safely sheltered in our identity as God’s child.

And that kind of joy, friend, is so much more than a fleeting feeling.

That is a joy that endures.

If you have never surrendered your life to Jesus, let me invite you this Christmas season to seek to learn more about Him. Jesus longs to restore your relationship with God. And that is good news of great joy indeed.

Until next time,

Shelby