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MARCH: Jesus' Prayer for Us

March 13

JOY

And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world,that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
John 17:13

How in practice do we have this joy? The first thing is to avoid concentrating on our own feelings. Many Christian people spend the whole of their lives looking at their own feelings and always taking their own spiritual pulse, their own spiritual temperature. Of course,they never find it satisfactory, and because of that they are miserable and unhappy, moaning and groaning.

The secret of joy is the practice of meditation—that is the way to have this joy of the Lord. We must meditate upon Him, upon what He is, what He has done, His love to us, and God’s care for us who are His people.

And obviously—this almost goes without saying—we must avoid everything that tends to break our fellowship with God. The moment that is broken, we become miserable. We cannot help it; whether we want it to or not, our conscience will see to that. It will accuse us and condemn anything that breaks our fellowship with God and His Son. The joy of the world always drives out the other joy, as does any dependence on the world; so we must avoid sin in every shape and form. Let us stop looking to the world, even at its best, for true joy and for true happiness. But above all, we must look at “these things” (John 17:13) that He speaks of, these truths that He unfolded. Let us meditate upon them, contemplate them, dwell upon them, revel in them, and I will guarantee that as we do so, either in our own personal meditation or in reading books about them, we will find ourselves experiencing a joy we have never known before. It is inevitable; it follows as the night the day.

A Thought to Ponder
Let us stop looking to the world. We must meditate upon Him, upon what He is, what He has done.

From Safe in the World, pp. 116-118.




Today’s devo is taken from Walking with God Day by Day © 2003 by Good News Publishers. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

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