|
JOY … The Evidence of Faith
Sometimes I feel like I just can’t take in anymore sadness! Our world is full of it. News media shouts so much sadness to us daily. People frown. They grimace. They are tense. And we often let the tensions and sadness that surrounds us color out times of prayer and praise. Our countenance can betray the joy of the Lord.
It is true that intercession is needful, and serious business. Travail is not a comfortable emotion but is necessary for birthing. But there is another side of prayer that is just as needful … joy! The same scriptural declaration that calls for God’s house to be a house of prayer also declares that we are to be made joyful in the house of prayer. (Isaiah 56:7)
In John 16, when Jesus is speaking of sorrow, weeping, travail and anguish, He ties it all into joy. In five verses (20-24), He uses the word “joy” four times and the word “rejoice” once. This is a lesson to be learned.
Endless travail and intercession is not meant to be. While needful and productive, it is to be interspersed with joy. Jesus continued this discourse by immediately encouraging us to ask and receive that our joy may be full. Joy is the evidence of our faith.
Joy is essential to prayer. It is the strength to bring forth. It is the evidence of believing that we will receive. True joy is a wonderful thing! It changes our thinking, our emotions, our physiological being! It is infectious. It is mood altering. It energizes. It influences. Joy is to be desired, received and reflected. It doesn’t matter how serious the travail and intercession, when we really know and receive it as fact that God has heard our prayer, joy comes as evidence of faith.
And when we have joy, don’t forget to notify your face! He said He would make us joyful in His house of prayer. A sad world needs to see the joy of the Lord as evidence of believing prayer.
WNOP
| 
