Colours of Joy

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Good morning Friend,

I trust you had a blessed week. I also trust that you have been praying actively and fervently for your country Nigeria. I saw a post that puts into a very proper perspective our efforts in Prayers and Actions to set this Nation on the right path. You can check out Pastor Damilola Oluwatoyinbo’s Instagram page for the post. It will bless you indeed.

Today, we will be checking out one of the most exciting colours in God’s Kingdom; JOY! Listen friends, Joy is the most remarkable evidence to the presence of the Holy Spirit in any given situation. Any person who has significantly gone low on Joy can no longer be used of God to fulfil His agenda upon the earth. The heart with which you serve, needs servicing from time to time, and Joy is that oil that reduces stress, brings about ease and excitement along your path of purpose and gets you adequately serviced from time to time. Once Elijah lost the Joy that once characterized his passion for the things of the Kingdom and replaced it with trepidation, anxiety, fear and sadness, God asked him to get himself a successor. Not because his assignment had been accomplished, but because he lacked a significant amount of joy to complete it. The devil will do His best to steal your joy from you and it is solely your responsibility to guard your joy with all you have. That Joy is your strength! Nehemiah 8:10b. Once you lose it, you lose your steam and hence your need to remain in active service.

Joy is what makes believers limitlessly elastic! We can be stretched beyond measure by tribulations, afflictions and temptations and still go out the next day looking as though absolutely nothing is going on… Paul was buffeted, afflicted, bruised, stolen from, shipwrecked, beaten, deprived, isolated, betrayed, but guess what? If he didn’t say it, you could never know because he counted it all joy when he fell into diverse temptations. Joy isn’t that happiness within you when you receive that heavy alert, or when she says yes to you, or when your dreams finally comes through, Joy isn’t that super active and happy part of your Sanguine tendencies… Naa, Joy is that sense of excitement and hopeful expectancy that is completely produced by the presence of the Holy Spirit within you. I’ll explain.

While David was running from cave to cave, without food, shelter or any resource of his own, he was still hanging in there by the Joy of the Holy Ghost resident in him. But when he got to the palace where he had all that money could ever buy, satisfaction that comes from possessions, power and authority, he still had a need to ask God not to retrieve from him, the Joy of salvation while renewing a right spirit within him. That was because he had sinned and now faced the possibility of losing that ever buoyant source of Joy he had come to rely on throughout his journeys from the wilderness to the palace. Trust me, happiness and Joy are no mates. So, join me as I share briefly on some colours of Joy.

1. Joy Stabilizes Your Emotions: When you see people who have no joy in them, their happiness is usually dependent on happenings, and since life is not lived on a straight line, their countenance, moods and disposition is never stable. They are touchy in crisis and overly excited in good times. Sometimes, for absolutely no reason, they just are moody. They’re unpredictable and therefore unreliable and immature. By God’s Grace, I’ve been blogging every week consistently for more than 3 years now (save the times when my phone was either bad or stolen) and sincerely there are several reasons why I could have quit, especially when it was difficult to be consistent, but Joy wouldn’t let me. It always finds a way to light up my countenance and make me show up one more week. With Joy constantly running things in your heart, you can be sure that even with Sanballat and Tobiah on your matter, and a ridiculous amount of work load on your hands, you can still maintain a stable amount of emotional disposition that inspires and encourages everyone around you.

2. Joy Takes You There: Joy itself is a satisfaction that cannot be improved upon. The Bible calls it the Joy unspeakable, full of Glory! 1 Peter 1:8. It’s already full of Glory, how could you add to that? It’s a doze of the mood of heaven. With Joy in your heart, you are ever satisfied with the fatness of the house of God and made to drink of the rivers of His pleasures. No wonder only the Joyful can draw waters from wells of salvation. I don’t know why anyone would want to take codeine, tramadol, cocaine, or alcohol so they could *get there*, when there is a Joy Unspeakable waiting to be harnessed. Oh boy! I feel excited already as I type these words. One way to harness that Joy is by praying in other tongues. You should do that often to get a virtual experience of heaven on earth. Gloryyyyyy! Sometimes for absolutely no terrestrial reason, I find myself shouting and hollering Glorryyyyyyy! Then I catch myself and realize… Oh, my Joy needed a vent!

3. Joy Confuses the enemy: You need to read the story of Nehemiah and the building of the walls of the Jerusalem. Sanballat and Tobiah were such a nagging set of agents from hell. They teased, frustrated and mocked the workers on the wall, but because of the Joy in their hearts, their hands were empowered to keep working and the enemies were left confused and thinking “what else can we do to frustrate these guys?”. The enemy cannot cope with a man that is ever joyful. Such a man is “unputdownable!”, he keeps bouncing back. I’d like to have such an effect on the enemy, wouldn’t you?

Nehemiah 8:10b (KJV) Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.

I trust these colours blessed you as they did mine. Do well to share and be a blessing to friends. God bless your heart and have a remarkable week ahead.