The Joy of the Cross (April 15, 2022)

As we approach Easter this year, I have been reflecting on the word Joy and I just wanted to share a few thoughts. It is a little long and may take some time to read through, but I hope in the end you will find it interesting, encouraging, and worthy of your time to read.

You would not think Joy would be a controversial topic, it seems like it is a topic light, fluffy and full of sunshine. I think however that is because we think of Joy basically the same way we think of Happiness. When I married Colleen that was a Happy/Joy filled day. When my Daughters Faith and Mercy were born those also were Happy/Joy filled days. If we get a promotion at work, if our team wins the championship, if we have a great meal with people we love, or we get a nice gift, etc. we experience Joy/Happiness. Well, under that definition then Joy is indeed a light and fluffy topic.

However, when God speaks about Joy in the bible, while it is true sometimes it is meant to be like happiness that is dependent on our current circumstances, often it is clear that God means something very different. This other type of joy is not something we generate on our own power in reaction to positive news, but rather this is a type of Joy that on our own we would struggle to have, and instead it is a gift that God gives to us. In fact, in the bible God tells us Joy is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit that comes when we hang out with God and learn to trust God. It is evidence of God’s power at work within us.

Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

Whenever I reflect on the fruit of the Spirit, a supernatural gift that only God can give to us, I always think if this is a fruit of the Holy Spirit God develops in us that others can observe in us, it means whatever this is it goes beyond what we already have in our normal flesh. For example, we read in Genesis that all people are created in the image of God and thus all are worthy of our respect. That also seems to me to mean all people are capable of some level of reflecting God’s character to love other people, not just Christians who follow and submit to Jesus, but everyone has a capacity to love.

So, if everyone already has a capacity to love, what does this additional supernatural fruit of the Holy Spirit of love look like? Well, it looks like Jesus on Good Friday. After Jesus had been tortured with his beard ripped off his bloody face, punched in the face till it was mushy, whipped with shards that tore the flesh off his back, had a crown of thorns painfully jammed onto his head, spat on, mocked and hung up naked in shame on a cross, Jesus looked down at his enemies cackling in delight at his agony and said Father forgive them, they know not what they do. That is a type of love that goes beyond what we can do in our natural flesh. That is a level of love we need the Holy Spirit to give to empower us with.

It is the type of love God gave to Elizabeth Elliot after her husband was murdered at the end of a spear, to go back into the Auca tribe of eastern Ecuador and live among the very people who murdered her husband showing them the love and kindness of Jesus.

It is the type of love God gave to Corrie Ten Boom after her family was arrested for hiding Jews from the Nazi’s, and after her Father and Her sister died in German Concentration camps, and after all the horror and suffering she herself went through. It is the Love God gave her when years later a former German Nazi soldier that had been at that camp and contributed to her suffering came up to her. He told her He had come to accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior and agreed with her public words of how unbelievable Gods great grace, mercy and forgiveness were. He raised his hand to shake her hand and ask for her forgiveness, and Corrie Ten Boom shared that in her own power she could not forgive this man, nor shake his hand for the pain he brought to her sister, her father, and others she loved, but with the fruit of love given from God the Holy Spirit, she was able to raise her hand to shake his. In doing so, she was filled by God with a love for this man who had brought her so much pain. A love God had for this man and a love God now transferred to her.

So then, if Love is like that, then what does it mean when God says the Holy Spirit develops in us a fruit of Joy? It must mean it is more than the standard happiness we experience that is completely dependent on our circumstances. It must mean this type of Joy is more than just sunshine and puppies.

Before we consider what this type of Joy looks like, let’s reflect on what this type of joy is not.

A) This Joy that we are filled with by God does not mean we can’t be real with God and others about our suffering, nor does it mean we will not go through suffering in this life, nor get overwhelmed.

Paul shares this in the Bible:

2 Corinthians 1:8 We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. 1:9 Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.

So, Paul gets very real here. There is no need to slap a fake smile on our faces and pretend everything is going great when we are in the middle of a painful and difficult storm. There is also a need to recognize the truth that sometimes it is God’s plan for you to go through suffering. Paul notes elsewhere, God uses our suffering to build in us endurance, and endurance leads to character and Character to Hope. A portion of that character God builds in us is to have compassion for others who suffer. In fact, even Jesus who has been without sin for all eternity past, was said to have been made perfect in His suffering.

Hebrews 2:10 In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered.

Jesus was free from sin in all eternity past, and because He was, He was the Perfect Sacrifice to pay the eternal price for our sin. In this sense He did not need to be made perfect as He already was. What then was He missing? He was missing humanity as someone we could relate to. We later read this in Hebrews that in Jesus we have a high priest that understands our suffering since He himself suffered. I personally have taken great comfort whenever I have been in painful and difficult storms in my life knowing my God who may ask me to go through suffering, was willing himself to go through suffering. As we go through suffering, we also are then able to understand when others go through suffering and God uses that to build in us compassion.

B) This Joy does not result from our having more Faith in our own Faith or pushing through on our own power

There is a false theology in American churches commonly referred to as Prosperity Theology, and Name it, claim it theology that does not line up with the overall message in the bible. This theology basically says that God only wishes pleasant and happy things in your life, and only Satan brings suffering. If you stay close to God and claim his promises, whatever you ask in prayer, God will give to you because after all He loves you, and those whom God loves He would never want to suffer.

Now, this theology is false and does not line up with what we see in the bible. It was God in Genesis that deliberately cursed the earth and with it brought hardship in tornados, hurricanes, etc. that have brought tremendous suffering into the lives of many people, including people who deeply love God and who obey His commands. It was God that brought the famine to Egypt during the time of Joseph that brought with it much suffering, including on Joseph’s family back in Canaan who loved God. In the book of Job, people will say it was Satan who brought suffering to Job, but in reality, we learn Satan could not touch a hair on Job’s head without God’s permission, so ultimately when Job’s children were all killed, when Job lost all his wealth, and when Job sat with painful boils all over his body, It was God that brought that suffering into his life.

In fact, Jesus himself promised us that in this world we would experience suffering.

John 16:33 I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Now in all these cases where God brought suffering, God did so out of love for us and had plans to bring good out of it. God uses our suffering to draw us back to Him and realize our complete dependence on and need for God and to build in us endurance, and with endurance character and with character hope. We see that Hope and trust in the goodness of God expressed so well by Job:

Job 13:15 Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him

The 2nd worst thing about this false theology is it places power into Faith. Not a Faith in Jesus that is like Shadrack, Meshack and Abednego when King Nebuchadnezzar was about to throw them into the fiery furnace for refusing to bow down to him and they said that Our God can save us if He so chooses, but even if He choses not to save us, we will still trust him. No, this theology puts the emphasis not on trust in Jesus whatever may come, but it puts it on having Faith in our Faith. A subtle shift, but one that takes the focus off Jesus and puts the focus onto us and becomes works based. This type of Faith in our Faith leads to pain and misunderstanding.

Now, I hear some Christians at times say knowing the bible is not important. Loving people is all that is important. I would submit without knowing the bible, it may at times not be possible to love and support people the way God calls us to. You can have a wonderful and compassionate heart, but if you do not understand the biblical principle of suffering as an example, you can unknowingly inflict pain.

I have shared this with some of you reading this, but others I have not. During the last 10 years of my wife Colleen’s life (2006 to 2016), she suffered at times from extreme mental anguish to the point on a few occasions she was suicidal and had to be hospitalized. Over the last 3 years of her life, she suffered from various extreme physical issues that got progressively worse and worse. During this most intense stretch (when my daughter Mercy was between 13 to 15, and my Daughter Faith between 14 to 16), there were a great many people that were praying for our family for healing for Colleen, for strength and comfort for us, etc. All those prayers were a tremendous blessing to us, we felt those prayers and I believe they were vital to us coming through that storm.

If you were one of those people praying for us, I want to again thank you and say how grateful I am. We also had many people help us in practical ways and there were so many people that responded exactly as Jesus would have them to. It was so wonderful for our family to witness God’s love for all of us through other people.

There were however a few people who had wonderful and compassionate hearts, and who meant well, that desired to be supportive of us, and yet their efforts actually added to our burden and pain. That was not their intention, but they sadly did it because they did not have a good understanding of who God is as revealed in the bible and how He works to use suffering to mold us into the image of Jesus.

These people would say to my children Faith and Mercy and to me things like “You do not have to take this from Satan. You simply need to have enough Faith to bind him up and Colleen can be healed. Simply name and claim your promise from God in that whatever you ask will be given (A verse taken out of context by the way, we ask sure, but like Jesus in the Garden, we also submit to Gods will). There is no need for you all to suffer like this. Just have more faith.”

Now again, I know the people who said these things. These are kind people, loving people, people with tender hearts who loved our family and it brought them pain to see Colleen suffer, to watch my daughters Faith and Mercy suffer, to watch me suffer. They meant to bless us, but what happened instead is it was a curse. What they were telling my daughters and what they were telling me was that it was our fault that Colleen was suffering. If we had more Faith, she would not be in this position.

Well, when you have been helplessly watching as someone you love (In this case my wife, Faith and Mercy’s Mom) suffer and slowly slip away from you even as you are trying your best to help them, being their caregiver and support, when you are tired and exhausted from having been going through storms for years, you need encouragement.

From these people, while they had good intentions and wanted to bless us, this false doctrine that if we just have more faith in our faith, God will remove our suffering was instead a curse on us, and it was like strapping an anchor to my kids at a time they were drowning. Now, I love all the people that did this. I know they simply did it out of a lack of knowledge and in ignorance. It is however a lesson for us all that simply having a desire to love others is not enough. We need God’s truth He has revealed in the bible to love people as God intends. I am only including this to help illustrate our dependence on God’s word and guidance to love people properly, not to throw stones. The reality is I also have dropped the love ball at times, having good intentions and yet in my ignorance bringing pain to others when I desired to bring blessings. Wanting to improve in these areas is one of the reasons I continue to study God’s word and continue to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to me where I am ignorant and to grant me the wisdom so I can love others the way God loves them in fullness and in truth.

Another person told my children “We have all been praying for your family for a long time now and things seem to just get worse and worse. There has to be some type of sin in your life that is causing this so you need to repent of that sin and then things will get better, and your mom can be healed.”

So, once again, this person may have had good intentions, their heart may have been in the correct place, but they spoke in ignorance that once again brought pain to my children making it their fault their mom was dying. Now, when the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin and we experience guilt that is a good thing as sin brings pain, sorrow and suffering into our life and God wants us to turn from that which brings us pain, so if this person had spoken truth and we did need to deal with sin, they could have been helpful.However, false guilt is not healthy nor is it from God. In this case, I knew we all loved Jesus, we all were imperfect yes, and sinned at times yes, but we repented when we fell, and we were all faithfully trying our best to walk with Jesus. So, I would advise unless you have a burning bush type of experience and God directly reveals to you a direct link between a person’s sin and the suffering they experience, it is likely a good idea not to wander into these waters.

Here is a good verse to demonstrate suffering is not always (in fact it is often not) about our own sin or even the sin of others:

John 9:2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

John 9:3“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

So then, I have spent a lot of time on what this fruit of the spirit called Joy is not. It is not putting on a fake smile, it is not denying the pain of suffering and being real with people. It is not the result of God removing suffering through our faith in our faith. So, what then does this fruit of the spirit Joy that comes from hanging out with God and is a gift the Holy Spirit look like?

There are several examples of this type of Fruit of the Spirit Joy found in the bible, but I think one of the best examples of it is found in this passage:

Acts 16:22 The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods. 23 After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. 24 When he received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks. 25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.

So, as I review this historical account of Paul and Silas, I see they were stripped of their clothes to shame them, they were beaten with rods, and then the flesh was torn from their backs when they were whipped / flogged. Then naked, in extreme pain and suffering from being beaten and flogged, they were thrown into a dark, damp uncomfortable prison cell. This is not a situation that one would experience happiness in. It is not a situation where on our own we would experience joy. Despite these circumstances however, we see them singing Joy filled praises to God. Now that is something the average person could not do in a circumstance like this. That can only be done when one hangs out with Jesus and the Holy Spirit gives one the gift of a supernatural Joy and peace that surpasses all understanding.

It is a Joy that comes from complete trust in Jesus. Paul and Silas emotions I am certain were overwhelmed; this was not a pleasant thing for them to be in. However, the gift that the Holy Spirit gave them here allowed them to see past their current circumstances, past this current world, and see the truth that God was for them, not against them and that God had a purpose for their suffering (In fact, He did in saving the Jailor and His family). We see this hope later when Paul is in a different dank and dark prison cell in Rome and his current circumstances are dire, he is able to write these joy filled words:

Romans 8:38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Now the truth of those words Paul wrote from his prison cell if we really let that sink in will cause us to rejoice and praise God, even in the middle of difficult circumstances.

I am also drawn to this passage in Hebrews:

Hebrews 12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 12:2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Jesus was able to endure the suffering and shame of the cross for the Joy that lay before him. His perspective was eternal, not earthbound and He trusted the good that would come out of his suffering and also that there would come a time when all suffering would cease.

Conclusion:

Have you ever experienced the type of Joy that Paul and Silas had in the prison when they sang praises to God in the middle of their suffering? I can testify that I have personally had times when life was so overwhelmingly painful that I cried out to God for mercy. It was at those times I experienced God’s answers to prayer, not just my prayer, but the answer to those of you who were faithfully praying on our behalf. The Holy Spirit filled me with such an overpowering knowledge and experience of God’s tender love and compassion for me in that moment, and Gods Faithfulness to walk through this all with me, and the vision of Hope He gave me to trust in Jesus that I found myself so filled with Joy I burst forth singing praises to my God. My God is truly my wonderful comforter, counselor, prince of peace, mighty God, My Lord, My King and my closest friend who loves me like no other. My God loves me, and no amount of suffering and no power brought against me will ever separate me from that love. Each of you reading this are also loved beyond Measure by your Heavenly Father, even when he allows suffering into your life.

As we head into Easter we reflect on Good Friday, and on Easter Sunday when Jesus rose from the dead and finally brought a true Hope into this world. We know then that regardless of our current circumstances, like Jesus we can endure the cross and fix our eyes on the hope that lies ahead. I am grateful for this Joy the Holy Spirit has so often filled me with, and my heart is such that my deep desire is that you and your family may also experience the Joy of Jesus this Easter as well.

Happy Easter to you and Your Family.

Love you all. Eric…

In the Calm, and in the Storm, God is Good, always…