LICC - Word for the Week - Surprised by joy

Monday, October 24, 2005 11:16 AM

The fruit of the Spirit is joy, Gal.5:22. You welcomed the message with the
joy given by the Holy Spirit, 1 Thes.1:6

How would we define the experience of becoming a Christian? "Surprised by
joy" is how C.S.Lewis described it. The Thessalonians, who welcomed the
message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit, experienced it as deliverance
from fear and bondage. They "turned to God from idols, to serve the living
and true God" (v.9). What an exchange - the dead and false for the living
and true! Along with conviction of the futility of their past life, the Holy
Spirit gave these new believers joy.

This joy was no ephemeral thing, no frothy emotionalism. It sustained the
Thessalonians through the persecution that followed their acknowledgment of
Christ. And it issued in an extraordinary change of behaviour. Their lives
were characterised by practical love. Writing to the Corinthians, Paul
commended the churches of Macedonia (of which the Thessalonian church was
one) that "out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and extreme
poverty welled up in rich generosity", and they gave, far beyond their
means, to help the famine-stricken Christians in Jerusalem. I wonder whether
joy is a missing element in our churches, or in our individual lives, today.
Perhaps our culture is to blame. Comfortable agnostics may not find
conversion such a radical change as the exchange of the dead and false for
the living and true. Or maybe we have so many other support systems that
putting our faith in Christ is simply adding one more to our portfolio.

But Christian faith and life are still as radically different from that of
the surrounding culture. We have been transferred from darkness to light,
from the emptiness of seeking our fulfilment in material things and the
opinions of others to fullness of purpose, security and identity as children
of our heavenly Father. Some cause for joy! This joy, which is the fruit of
the Spirit, then enables us, as those who have found a priceless treasure,
to stand up and be counted, in our daily life and work, in spite of
opposition and ridicule. And it spills over in energy, love and an almost
reckless generosity.

Helen Parry

http://www.licc.org.uk