Joy Unspeakable
Periodically, when reading God’s Word or just thinking about Him and His goodness, I am so overcome with joy that I just start laughing at the wonder of it all. Recently, while reading from II Corinthians 5, I was bowled over once again. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (II Corinthians 5:21). Do you know that in Christ, we are as righteous as He is righteous? (I John 3:7). Does that not move you? Does that not cause your heart to overflow with joy?
Don’t ask me to explain the moods of the Spirit, I only know that now, after having served Jesus for 49 years, it all seems new again. I find myself laughing, I find myself crying, I find myself is speechless wonder. If find myself, along with Christian from Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, leaping and singing, “Blessed Cross! Blessed Sepulcher! Blessed ever be! The Man that there was put to shame for me!”
Standing in the wonder of his salvation, Charles Spurgeon said, “O what a sweet season when Jesus took away my sin. I was so joyous that I could scarcely keep from dancing. I had been set free, so much so that I had to tell the stones in street of my deliverance. I wanted to tell every snowflake that was falling from heaven, of the wondrous love of Jesus, who had blotted out my sins.”
It’s not only at the start of the Christian life that the believer has reason to sing and dance; as long as they live, they discover the ways of the Lord, and their experience of His constant loving kindness leads them to say, “I will bless the Lord at all times and His praise shall continually by in my mouth!” (Psalm 34:1).
Have you magnified the name of the Lord today? Have you lifted your voice, your heart, and your hands to the one who came to set you free from sin, death, and fear? Have you celebrated the fact today that you are a child of the King of Kings? Every spiritual blessing in Christ is already yours! (Ephesians 1:3) Every provision that pertains to life and godliness is already yours! (II Peter 1:3) All of these promises are yours, yours to claim by faith.
