The Joy of Faith

My 7 Joys of Faith

This morning, during one of those quiet moments, the Lord prompted me to consider some of the blessings of my faith. Well, it didn’t take long before I had a few ideas and they eventually, with a nudge or two from the Holy Spirit, became the seven joys of my faith. Why seven exactly. Well the Lord reminded me that there are seven deadly sins so it would be appropriate if we balanced them with seven joys of faith. These are my seven personal joys and you may have your own, but just for the record, here they are.

1 - Prayer – To me, prayer is the greatest blessing and joy when it is personal and intimate. I still marvel and wonder at the privilege of the veil being torn so that I may enter into the ‘Holy of Holies’ of my heavenly Father’s presence. I can sit quiet and just listen to Him, or I can come in and rant and rave before Him. I can plead for a baby’s healing or I can just talk through my own problems with Him. You see, when God said to call Him ‘Abba, Father’, that paved the way to an intimacy of personal contact such that mankind had never had before. It is my personal greatest joy to be able to enter His presence and call Him ‘Daddy’ and to just sit at His feet and commune with Him

2 - Sharing – Sharing my faith is another great joy. Some people find this very hard, and I both empathise and sympathise with this. Let me say right now that it is far easier to share Jesus with strangers than it is with friends, or more especially, with family. However, when I have the opportunity to do so, I love to share my faith. It is usually a quiet thing and I try very hard not to be ‘in your face’ about it. However, I have found very few people who will reject a very brief message that Jesus loves them, or who will reject a prayer for healing if appropriate.

3 - Healing – After prayer and sharing, surely the most joyful and satisfying aspect of faith is to see a prayer for healing answered. It’s not even the real ‘biggies’ that give the most joy – although they do give great joy and thanksgiving of course – it is the small every day healings like headaches, back aches, tooth aches, and minor ailments and illnesses. This is because they are most likely to be of the ‘instant’ variety of healings. One of the ladies in our church fell and broke her arm. When she returned from hospital to the pre-school where she worked, a little child simply went to her, placed her hands on the plaster, and prayed, “Please Jesus, mend Mrs Jones’s arm.” It Happened immediately. The lady knew that it was healed. No pain, no fuss, no nothing. Healed – totally and completely. At the hospital next morning to check the plaster cast, they x-rayed the arm and found no mark whatsoever on the bones and they put up yesterdays x-rays beside today’s to prove the healing. What joy and celebration.

4 - Deliverance – Without going into the old chestnut of whether or not a Christian can have a demon, the Great Commission’s command to cast out demons is the greatest bondage breaker and the greatest joy to do. I have seen people dance for joy at the release they feel having been freed from the grips of alcohol, tobacco, drugs, or any other addicting spirit. It is an incredible privilege and joy to be used in this work.

5 - Mentoring – To be invited and allowed to walk alongside another person, and to see them lose their deepest ingrained fears, often picked up in abusive and/or illegal or immoral relationships, is a pure joy. To see a person rediscover their self-worth; their self-confidence; or even their zest for life as against their longing for self-harm or even death, is another tremendous privilege and joy. To be allowed to talk about their deepest fears, their greatest desires, their finances, their loved ones, their highs and their lows is perhaps the greatest privilege and trust we can share with another person. To do so with one who is a relative stranger is such a wonderfully joyous privilege.

6 - Befriending – along with mentoring but without so much, if at all, the advice and guidance is another tremendous privilege and joy to me. To simply share and fellowship with those who otherwise might have very few friends and maybe no relatives at all, is another of God’s great privileges and pleasures. To walk alongside, perhaps as a friend and confidante of those without anyone else to turn to – to see the sheer pleasure or relief it gives them to know there is someone they can just talk to and trust with a ‘secret’ – priceless joy.

7 - Hospitality – My final choice of the seven great joys of my faith is the unbelievable pleasure of entertaining and being hospitable to those who have nowhere else to go. It may be a temporary situation or it may be more permanent but such people are sometimes eternally grateful for a little bit of Christian hospitality. I remember when my kids were at college. We never had a Christmas without at least one ‘waif and stray’ staying with us and sharing our family Christmas. The look on the face of one almost dreading the loneliness of the festive season being invited to spend it in a warm and loving home atmosphere is priceless. We have decided to do the same this year too. Can’t help it – it is too much of a joy, privilege, and pleasure.

So there you have them, my personal seven joys of faith in Jesus Christ. You see, when Jesus gave us the Great Commission, I am sure He didn’t mean for us all to be great serving missionaries working out in foreign lands serving strange and foreign people. To me, the Great Commission was a command to share my faith in whatever way I am able to do so, with ALL those around me, wherever I happen to be.

I have discovered that it costs very little except time to obey that great commission. I have discovered that the Lord wants ME to do these things. He doesn’t want my money – cos I haven’t got much anyway. He doesn’t want my possessions – He has far more to give than I have. He wants my heart and a little bit of my time.

What a joy and privilege to have a faith that I am allowed to share in such diverse ways. What a joy and a privilege to be used by God to share what little faith I have with those less fortunate than me.

“Inasmuch as you did the least little thing for the least of these my brothers – you did it for Me.”