Radical Joy

As we discussed throughout the month of February, full joy can only be known as a result of abiding in the love of God through Jesus. This is why, when listing out the fruit of the Spirit, the Apostle Paul chose to place the fruit of joy immediately after the fruit of love, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control..." (Galatians 5: 22-23). Holy Spirit love leads to Holy Spirit joy.

But what's so radical about Holy Spirit level joy? Well, for starters, the kind of joy mentioned here isn't just the human emotion of happiness. Happiness is often times circumstantial and cannot sustain us through the challenges of this life.  We see this same kind of joy mentioned by Jesus in John 15: 11 when He made the following statement after speaking about abiding in the love of God,  "These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full" (John 15:10-11).

Notice that Jesus described this joy as first being His joy. It's so important to understand the joy of Jesus so that we can appropriately understand how we obtain His joy, and obtain it to the fullest.  I will be devoting the month of March to exploring and meditating on Scriptures that help us better understand this radical joy of Jesus.