Can I Have Joy in My Life? (Crucial Questions)

by R.C. Sproul

However, the Greek word used in the Beatitudes is best translated as blessed, as it communicates not only the idea of happiness but also profound peace, comfort, stability, and great joy.

Christian’s duty, his moral obligation, to be joyful. That means that the failure of a Christian to be joyful is a sin, that unhappiness and a lack of joy are, in a certain way, manifestations of the flesh.

How is it possible to remain joyful all the time?

The key to the Christian’s joy is its source, which is the Lord. If Christ is in me and I am in Him, that relationship is not a sometimes experience. The Christian is always in the Lord and the Lord is always in the Christian, and that is always a reason for joy. Even if the Christian cannot rejoice in his circumstances, if he finds himself passing through pain, sorrow, or grief, he still can rejoice in Christ. We rejoice in the Lord, and since He never leaves us or forsakes us, we can rejoice always.

Every Christian is to manifest all of the fruit of the Spirit, and the more we grow in grace, the further we progress in our sanctification, the more gentle we should be, the more patient we should be, the more faithful we should be, and, obviously, the more joyful we should be.

The most basic method is to focus our attention on the ground of our joy, the source of our joy.

It is anxiety that robs us of our joy. And what is anxiety but fear? Fear is the enemy of joy. It is hard to be joyful when we are afraid.

If we understand who Christ is and what He has done for us, we have a new dimension of joy.

In other words, tribulation, pain, and suffering work patience within us, so something good happens to us even in the midst of trials. By remembering that truth, as we pass through trials, as difficult as they may be to bear, we will understand that they are not an exercise in futility, but that God has a purpose in them, and His purpose is always good.

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28)?

So, James is exhorting us to count it all joy even when it is not all joy, not because it is joyous to be involved in pain and suffering, but because God can bring good through that pain and suffering. He is working in even the difficult situations for our sanctification.

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (v. 18).

this world is not our home. Our final destination still lies ahead.

hope is the anchor of the soul (Heb. 6:19).

I sometimes wonder, given how much I struggle with life as a Christian, how people who are not Christians make it. How do they endure without the hope of the joy that has been stored up for us in heaven? We should be much more thankful for this blessed hope than we are, and fix our eyes on the future in the midst of pain and affliction.

Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us” (3:16).

The life of faith is not just about believing that God exists; it is about believing God or trusting God.

I have this conversation with myself every time I am afraid: “R. C., do you really trust God? Do you believe Him when He promises you that this is for good and for your ultimate joy?” Only if we believe God can we maintain joy in the midst of hardship.

God gives that kind of stability, even in the midst of calamity, to those who give their attention to Him and place their trust in Him. That’s what Habakkuk meant when he said, “The righteous shall live by his faith.” That’s the basis for the joy that we have as Christians.

But have you noticed that when our team wins, we say, “We won,” but when they lose, we say, “They lost”? We love to identify with a winner, but we are not happy to identify with a loser.

“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (Rom. 12:15). That is one of the key principles of joy. It teaches us that our joy is not to be restricted to our own circumstances or our own achievements, but that we ought to be able to feel joy for other people, for their achievements, for their successes, and for their bounty.

secret to joy is to put Jesus first, others second, and yourself third.

Our joy is to come from the assurance that we have redemption in Christ. The greatest joy that a person can have is to know that his name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, that he is saved and will live forever with Christ.

Guilt is determined not by how we feel but by what we do.

“What is the chief end of man?” The answer that we were required to learn and to recite was this: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.”

But then I discovered that the more pleasure I acquired, the less joy I possessed, because I was seeking pleasure in things that required that I disobey God. That is the attraction of sin. We sin because it is pleasurable. The enticement of sin is that we think it will make us happy. We think it will give us joy and personal fulfillment. But it merely gives us guilt, which undermines and destroys authentic joy.

As we seek forgiveness from God on a day-to-day basis, we return to the beginning of our joy—the day we discovered that our names are written in heaven.

His gift is the joy that comes from knowing that our names are written in heaven.

ego eimi.

That is what is going to happen to you. You need the body of Christ. You need the church of Christ. You need the fellowship of the saints and the assembly of the people of God. We are not rugged individualists who are called to live in isolation from others.”

But He was reminding us that we are prone to wander,