DO WE HAVE JOY IN THE HOLY SPIRIT?

       Do we have joy in the Holy Spirit? I’ll ask it again. Do you—do I—as Christians—have joy in the Holy Spirit?

     Paul wrote in Romans 14:17, “For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.” I have heard for years ABOUT the Holy Spirit—but do I really know the Holy Spirit and what impact He has in my life to lead me, and to give me joy in the Holy Spirit?

      In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit came upon people at certain times for certain purposes. For example, Joseph interpreted Pharoah’s dreams, and Pharoah said of Joseph the following in Genesis 41:38-39:

"Can we find anyone like this, a man who has God’s spirit in him?” So Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Since God has made all this known to you, there is no one as discerning and wise as you are.”

     Joseph was given God’s Holy Spirit to interpret Pharoah’s dreams. That led to Pharoah making Joseph a ruler in Egypt, an acknowledgment of the Spirit’s power in Joseph’s life to lead during Egypt’s famine crisis.

   Jesus, however, shared with His disciples a different dynamic of the Holy Spirit after He was to die and rise again. The Holy Spirit would now live forever inside persons who surrendered their lives to Jesus. The temporary filling for a specific purpose was to give way to a more permanent filling.

   Jesus shared in John 15, 16, and 17 the following characteristics of the Holy Spirit, or “Counselor” in the life of a believer:

1. The Holy Spirit will enable believers to testify powerfully about Jesus and His love for mankind.
2. The Holy Spirit will convict mankind of its sinfulness, how to become righteous in God’s sight, and the judgment that awaits Satan and those that follow Satan.
3. The Holy Spirit will guide believers “into all truth”. There will be no more ambiguity about what truth is.
4. The Holy Spirit will “declare to you what is to come”. In other words, He will make Christians aware of God’s timetable for events. I don’t believe this means exact timing, but an order or sequence of events. 
5. The Holy Spirit will glorify Jesus by taking what was by birthright for Jesus, and “declare it to you”, to believers. That means Jesus’ power to do His works on earth will be given to us as believers.
6. The Holy Spirit will enable believers to live as one with Jesus, with God, and with other believers to show proof that God sent Jesus to love the world and the people in the world as God loves them.
7. In Romans 8:26 Paul writes that the Holy Spirit “ever lives to intercede, or pray, for us with groanings too deep for words.” 
8. Lastly, the Holy Spirit will give us joy that is “complete” as Jesus described in John 16:24. We may be sorrowful for a short time, but in the end comes joy from the God of the entire universe, and Jesus’ Holy Spirit that lives in us.

     Life many times is difficult, and I think this difficulty distracts us—I know it does me—from understanding who the Holy Spirit is, and what He can do in our lives.

     I think the first step toward having joy in the Holy Spirit despite our difficulties, is to recognize that there is a Holy Spirit in the first place that lives inside of believers in Jesus. 

     The second step is to understand that the Holy Spirit is present to help and comfort us in any situation. 

        Only then can we have “joy in the Holy Spirit”!

ARE WE RADIANT WITH JOY IN THE HOLY SPIRIT?

     Are we radiant with joy in the Holy Spirit? I reiterate the question. Are you—am I—radiant with joy in the Holy Spirit?

     As Christians we are to be different—aren’t we? We've been changed by God from being a sinful person to one saved by grace—isn’t that right?

     I know that sometimes I don’t feel different. I struggle with hurt feelings, with feelings of insecurity, and sometimes I get angry. I’m not sure where all these feelings come from. I pray repeatedly from the depths of my heart for God to change me. I read over and over again Romans 8:26-27:

“In the same way, the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

     It’s doubtful that any of us will ever totally shed our insecurities. But by looking to God, praying to Him, and reading His Word, we can have joy—real deep down joy in the Holy Spirit, as Paul talked about in Romans 14:17:

“—for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.”

     Then here's the real clincher whether we can have real deep, down, visible joy in the Holy Spirit. It's found In Psalm 34:5 where David wrote the following:

“Those who look to him are radiant with joy.”

I want to look to him when I have hurt feelings, periods of insecurity, and definitely instances where I feel anger ready to burst out. I want instead to look to Him—to be radiant with joy in the Holy Spirit!