Joy Challenge Video Devotional - Day 21: Pastor Kjell Axel Johanson
Click here to watch the video in a new window!
“For the LORD your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With His love, He will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.”
Zephaniah 3:17 (NLT)
In our Joy Challenge, we’ve focused a lot on the joy of the Lord in our lives, but have you ever considered what brings God joy? What causes Him to rejoice? Imagine for a moment how we might bring joy to our Heavenly Father. One of my favorite artistic renderings of Jesus is the one of Him laughing, full of joy and delight. It seems all too common that the picture most people have of Jesus in their mind’s-eye is with a look of disappointment. It’s so easy to feel like we just don’t measure up. We have so many faults and failures. How could a person like me bring joy to God? All I ever seem to do is let Him down. If you’ve ever felt like that I want you to pause and read this passage out loud to yourself. It’s from a little-known Old Testament minor prophet named Zephaniah. He was one of the final prophets before the captivity of Judah into Babylon. Zephaniah was a contemporary of Jeremiah and is credited with giving impetus to the revival during the reign of King Josiah. Zephaniah was a prophet of love during a period of judgment. Despite Israel’s failures look at what Zephaniah said to them in Zephaniah 3:17 (NLT), “For the LORD your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With His love, He will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.”
Commenting on this passage, the late Pastor J Vernon McGee wrote, “My friend, God has a purpose. He goes through the night of judgment in order to bring us into the light of a new day. He does all of this that the day might come when He can rest in His love. God loves you and me today. I don't know about you, but I doubt very seriously whether He can rest in His love for Vernon McGee. He could say of me, ‘He's not perfected yet. He seems so immature. He is so filled with faults. He is apt to digress, apt to detour, at any moment.’ God cannot rest in His love today. But the day is coming when we will be in His likeness …. Then He is going to bring us to Himself. What a wonderful and glorious picture this is!” (Thru the Bible with J. Vernon McGee)
How is it that my life might bring joy to God? How could He take such delight in me with gladness and rejoice over me with joyful songs? When I read this description of such joy in the heart of God, I can’t help but envision a mother signing over her infant child as she cradles her baby in her arms.
If you struggle with that kind of image, consider the prayer of blessing that Moses was instructed by God to tell Aaron and his sons to bless the people of Israel with in Numbers 6:24-26. I love the way The Living Bible paraphrases it, “May the Lord bless and protect you; may the Lord’s face radiate with joy because of you; may He be gracious to you, show you His favor, and give you His peace.” Then in verse 27, God says, “This is how Aaron and his sons shall call down My blessings upon the people of Israel; and I Myself will personally bless them."
How is that possible when Israel made so many mistakes and failed to obey God in the wilderness? The same way in which you and I bring joy to our Heavenly Father. His love for us is not conditioned upon our performance anymore than the love of a mother for her infant. It is His nature to love because God is love! He loves us so much that He sent His one and only Son to die for the sins we committed, the mistakes we made, the failures for which we are guilty. Yet listen to what Jesus said in Luke 15:10 (CCNT), “I tell you that in just that way there is joy in the presence of God's angels over one sinner who repents." In verse 7 He said, “I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” (NIV)
Have you repented of your sin? Have you opened your heart to a loving God and sought His forgiveness? What kind of image do you see when you envision God looking at you? Zephaniah reminds us that the LORD our God is living among us, that He is a mighty Savior! Receive Him as your Savior today. Ask Him to save you from your sins. “He will take delight in you with gladness. With His love, He will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.”
Printed copies of The Joy Challenge devotional are available at The Joy Challenge - Kerry Shook Ministries.