Joy Challenge Video Devotional - Day 16: Pastor Ryan Shook
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“Always be filled with joy in the Lord. I will say it again. Be filled with joy.”
Philippians 4:4 (ETRV)
Radical joy is the kind of joy that remains despite the circumstances of life, good or bad. And the Bible says that we can always be filled with that kind of joy. The challenge comes when we experience the inevitable struggles of life. Yesterday, we covered the first two Biblical truths that enable us to experience radical joy. When struggles threaten to drain your joy tank remember that God cares about what you’re going through and wants to lovingly comfort you. 2 Corinthians 1:4a (NLT) says that God comforts us in all our troubles. That’s the first truth. The second is that nothing can take what really matters when we know Jesus.
Here are the final two reasons we can experience radical joy no matter what happens:
3. God can use our struggles for our good.
James wrote to Jewish believers who had been scattered throughout the Roman empire because of persecution. Despite their intense struggle, he found opportunity for joy. He wrote to encourage them that God was using their struggles to help them grow. In James 1:2-4 (NIV) he says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” That’s radical joy!
4. The joy of heaven puts everything into perspective.
Radical joy requires a radical faith that looks beyond the here and now and sees life through the lenses of eternity. When you consider the real but temporary pain or loss in perspective to the next 10 million years of joyful celebration in heaven, you understand how the apostle Paul could write, “That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our inner strength in the Lord is growing every day. These troubles and sufferings of ours are, after all, quite small and won’t last very long. Yet this short time of distress will result in God’s richest blessing upon us forever and ever! So we do not look at what we can see right now, the troubles all around us, but we look forward to the joys in heaven which we have not yet seen. The troubles will soon be over, but the joys to come will last forever.” 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (TLB)
And he wasn’t the only New Testament writer with such an eternal heavenward perspective. I love the way the Living Bible paraphrases what Peter writes to the Jewish Christians driven out of Jerusalem and scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia Minor, and Bithynia. You’ll find his challenge for radical joy in 1 Peter 1:1-6 where he writes these encouraging words of the eternal joy of heaven.
“Dear friends, God the Father chose you long ago and knew you would become His children. And the Holy Spirit has been at work in your hearts, cleansing you with the blood of Jesus Christ and making you to please Him. May God bless you richly and grant you increasing freedom from all anxiety and fear. All honor to God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; for it is His boundless mercy that has given us the privilege of being born again so that we are now members of God’s own family. Now we live in the hope of eternal life because Christ rose again from the dead. And God has reserved for His children the priceless gift of eternal life; it is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. And God, in His mighty power, will make sure that you get there safely to receive it because you are trusting Him. It will be yours in that coming last day for all to see. So be truly glad! There is wonderful joy ahead, even though the going is rough for a while down here.”
Has the going been rough for you lately? Radical joy doesn’t deny the reality of sorrow and suffering. They’re real and painful. Radical joy enables us to always be full of joy because our joy is in the Lord. We find our joy in the One who comforts us in all our sorrows with the confidence that nothing can take away what really matters. It’s a joy that even transcends our troubles and sees God at work making us complete in Him with the anticipation of heaven one day! Ask God to fill you today with His radical joy!
Printed copies of The Joy Challenge devotional are available at The Joy Challenge - Kerry Shook Ministries.