No One Can Rob You of That Joy

Tuesday, March 11, 2014            

No One Can Rob You of That Joy

John  16: 12-22

Jesus is preparing his disciples for his final days with them. What lies ahead of Jesus is so much more than the events of the Cross, the Grave, and the Resurrection. Jesus is describing to his disciples the indescribable. God’s New Creation is about to be birthed into existence. How can you describe that? Jesus gave his disciples just a taste of what was coming, and then tells them to trust the Holy Spirit. One of the ministries of the Holy Spirit is to teach us the significance of what happened on those three days, and how to live out of this new reality.

The two greatest aspects of God’s New Creation are the gift of the Holy Spirit and the gift of prayer. The Holy Spirit is Jesus’ very presence with the believer. The Holy Spirit is our guide, our teacher, the One who empowers our souls to live as fully-devoted followers of Jesus.

Jesus told his disciples, “So you have sorrow now, but I will see you again; then you will rejoice, and no one can rob you of that joy” (John 16:22 Emphasis mine). You are reading this today because of the truth of Jesus’ statement. The joy the disciples experienced at seeing the resurrected Jesus changed them forever. It was that joy that compelled them to follow Jesus’ command to go into the whole world and make disciples of Jesus for the transformation of the world.

This joy wasn’t just for those eleven disciples with Jesus the night he was arrested. St. Stephen experienced that joy and so did St. Paul. Teresa of Avila experienced that joy, as did Mother Teresa. So did Martin Luther, John Wesley and Detrick Bonhoeffer.

So have I and so can you!

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.