Recover Joy
The pressure’s relentless. No matter how good you are, you could always be better, faster, richer, more accomplished, and better looking. Not only that, but we’re exposed to world-class performance every day. It’s no longer enough to be the best in your area. You’re now competing against the best in the world.
If we’re not careful, we will live in a constant state of comparison and not feeling good enough. The solution? Recover joy.
Recover Joy in Who You Are in Jesus
“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God,” Paul writes (Colossians 3:1). The implication: you have been raised with Christ. His life has become your new life. “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (Colossians 3:3-4).
You have a new life. You’re secure now. And your future is better than you can imagine. All of this is true, and nothing can change that.
No matter how much we fall short, the greatest truth about us is that if we are in Christ, we have a new identity in Jesus. We can’t fall short, because our new status has been given to us and can never be taken away.
Recover Joy in Your Pursuit of God
Pursuing God can seem like another thing to do. Our lists are already too long. There’s no possible way we could keep up. How can we add something else, especially something so big as pursuing God?
But pursuing God isn’t just another task. It’s far more than that: it’s meant to be our greatest joy. God made us for relationship with him, and our greatest and highest purpose is to know and enjoy him. Pursuing God isn’t another way to work; it’s an important way to recover joy and rest.
Satan loves to corrupt things. He wants our pursuit of God to become a drudgery rather than a joy. He wants us to see God as another item on our task list. To be sure, we will feel like this is true sometimes. But remind yourself: to pursue God is to pursue joy. Ask him to give you joy as you run after him in the middle of your pressure-filled life.
Recover Joy in His Care for You
1 Peter 5:7 tells us to cast our anxieties on God. The reason? “He cares for you.” God’s care over our lives is comprehensive. Charles Simeon wrote:
He watches over them for good: he limits and restrains all their adversaries: he sympathizes with them in all their afflictions: he imparts to them all temporal and spiritual blessings: he hears and answers all their supplications: he accounts them his most inestimable treasure: he communes with them as his sons and daughters: he takes upon him the management of all their concerns.
There’s nothing in your life that God doesn’t care about.
It’s a constant fight to find joy in a world that always wants more, and that leaves us feeling like we never measure up. Recover some joy today. You have a new status that can’t be taken away. God will give you joy as you pursue him. He cares for you. Find joy, not by pursuing it, but by pursuing God. He will give you the joy that we all desire.
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