The Fruit of the Spirit 33 (How to walk in Joy)

How to Walk in Joy

The moment we believe the Gospel and receive the life of Christ, we receive joy. However, having received God's joy as Christians, we don't automatically walk in it. That's why I will be sharing in this article how to walk in joy—how to stay joyful.

"Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit." Psalms 51:11-12.

To walk in divine joy, we need to open our hearts to the Holy Spirit. In the verse above, David was expressing his guilt over the taking of Bathsheba and the whole scenario that came with it when Nathan the prophet came to tell him his wrongs. He was humbled and was praying like an Old Testament saint because he had not yet received the reality of the New Covenant.

In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit often comes upon the believer for a specific assignment and at a particular time. So, David asking God not to take away His Spirit from him is an appropriate thing to say as an Old Testament believer. But as New Testament believers, we cannot pray this prayer in that context because Christ has already come into our lives with the fullness of the Holy Spirit. It’s a blessing of His divine grace as a result of the redemption He wrought on the cross. So, the Holy Spirit does not come and go. He has come to stay in the life of a believer permanently. The gospel truth is that not even your sin can chase the Holy Spirit from your life. He has come to stay. Glory to Jesus! Therefore, it is crucial to understand that scripture in the light of our redemption; the Holy Spirit has come to stay in your life and so has His joy.

Do you remember when you got saved? Do you remember the experience you had? In most cases, we were filled with joy. Our hearts began to be merry and glad at the reception of the Gospel. However, in many cases, after some weeks or months, our hearts lack that merriment. Why then? When we get saved, our conscience is not aware of anything else apart from the redemption of Christ and the love the gospel has revealed in our hearts. We are so excited that the God of all flesh could come down to die for our sins and secure for us eternal life. At that point, the Holy Spirit saturates us thoroughly with the reality of the life we have received and our heart receives the effect—joy. But after some time, our hearts begin to consider something else apart from what the Holy Spirit had revealed to us, and then the heart loses the influence of the Holy Spirit, including joy. God intends your heart to be filled with joy and merriment. His desire for us is that we would know His joy in our hearts in such a way that it becomes obvious to people around us.

When David was talking about the joy of salvation, he was saying that our salvation has joy in it. But we need the influence of the Holy Spirit to experience the joy that salvation brings. That was why he prayed that prayer: "Take not the Holy Spirit from me. Then restore to me the joy of my salvation."

For David under the Old Testament, sin took away the influence of the Holy Spirit upon his life. He knew what joy meant to the heart. He could have asked only for pardon and forgiveness. But with all these, he sought to experience the joy that comes from salvation. The sign of spiritual maturity and spiritual experience is that you experience joy in your heart.

Even though the Holy Spirit does not come and go now in the New Testament dispensation, many times we annihilate His effect in our lives when we refuse to open our hearts to His illumination. This is how we grieve the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 4:32 tells us not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Just as when we first got born again and our hearts were so open to Him as He showed us the love of Christ, the beautiful life He offers, and the glorious inheritance we have with the Father, our hearts were merry and glad. So also, we must continually open our hearts to His revelation. We must guard our hearts with all diligence.

Now that we are born again, we are not ordinary. We have the grace of God to decide what we permit in our hearts. We cannot allow the devil to take us down the old path he took us before we got born again, the path of the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life—the same path he took Adam and Eve. Our hearts must only be available to the light that comes from the Spirit of grace. We must not allow the pressure the world puts on people to take over our hearts. Beloved, we must decide that what our hearts will consider is what the Spirit brings. It is what the Holy Spirit has for you.

If an Old Testament saint like David could understand what the joy of salvation means, and while he was praying the sinner's prayer, he specifically demanded it, then we need to understand that experiencing joy in believers’ hearts is non-negotiable.

Please prayerfully meditate on these things.

By Peter Ayoola Fakeye (PAF)

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