The Joy of the Lord

I received some feedback and questions after my last post related to what happens when we read God's word/ pray out of obligation instead of relationship.

Reading God's word and spending time in prayer is meant to be a joy and a blessing! Not something we "have" to do, but something we delight in doing. For example, I delight in spending a night out with Vermon, discussing our passions and dreams--sure I "have" to do it to keep our marriage healthy, but it never feels as though I "have" to because I so deeply love him and receive so much joy from those times we have together. How much more with my Eternal Groom! I could approach it as something I “have” to do and then wallow in shame and guilt when I don’t, but if that is the approach we are taking to our relationship with the Lord…then there are some deeper things to fix. (Just like if spending time with Vermon ever becomes something I “have” to do, right along side paying bills and grocery shopping—Houston, we have a problem)

That being said, it is a problem that really does happen (both in relationship with humans and our Lord)—I’m not comparing a desire for my spouse with a desire for the Lord to make anyone feel guilty if they lack that desire or do not receive joy and fulfillment from their time with the Lord. I just want to paint a picture of how devastated a marriage would be if it were at that point and encourage you to view your spiritual state in the same way. When cultivating intimacy with the Lord becomes a chore (and there are times it will!), then we are in desperate need of spiritual repair. It isn’t something we can passively sit by and just “wait on the Lord” to return some desire to our hearts…we are bleeding out in the emergency room and are going to die without some immediate intervention.

So what happens when we don’t delight and find joy in the Lord…what happens when we wake up and realize that are relationship is in a devastated state?

1) Don’t let guilt and shame keep you from looking at the issue. Shame tells us to continue to keep our heads down looking at ourselves, wallowing in the pitiful excuse we are for Christians. The Gospel tells us to stop looking at ourselves and start looking to Christ. If you are crippled by guilt and shame then study grace and what that means. Shame does not and will not lead to holiness —God’s grace is that he took our shame and guilt upon himself and transformed it—that is what will lead us to holiness.
“For by grace you have been saved, through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Eph 2: 8-10

2) Repent of religion and irreligion. (I’m stealing this from Tim Keller…which he took from the Bible, so I guess it isn’t stealing ) Repent of your desire to be perfect and righteous for your own good, of your spiritual pride, of your idolization of religion, and of your desire to appear like a super star Christian. Repent also of the ways you have ignored God and made idols of worldly things in your life.

3) Remove all excuses from your vocabulary (see previous post), lean on your church community, carve out time daily…even if all you do during that time is pray for a desire to desire God. Know that the time you spend with the Lord is for His glory (not just for your own warm and fuzzies) and ask the Lord to help you delight in him. Read the Psalms, meditate on them, write them out, sing them...read Hosea and the other prophets and ask God to continue to reveal sin and grace. Faithfully pursue God and trust his promise to fill you with a deep joy as you delight in Him.

Romans 6:
“We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace”