JOY

“You become imitators of us and of the Lord in spite of severe suffering you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit”

1 Thess 1:6

One of the ways the Holy Spirit helps us is he gives us supernatural joy in difficult situations. This is divine joy and isn’t the same low-level happiness based on our circumstances or feelings or some sort of exuberance or excitement because everything is going well and we got a pay rise or a cheque in the mail or because holidays are coming. These are just fleeting feelings of happiness that change moment by moment. This joy of the Holy Spirit is in times of afflictions and here severe affliction. This joy is of divine origin from the person of the Holy Spirit. This severe affliction is obviously referring to persecution and suffering because of excepting the Gospel. It has the ideal of a level of stress that is off the charts in intensity and crushing for most people. And would be suffocating but here these believers were also experiencing the supreme ecstasy and joy of the Holy Spirit.

When times get very challengingly the supernatural life rises up inside of us to defy the onslaught and stress of it all. The supernatural joy will sustain you even in the midst of the hardest times. What comes out of you when the pressure comes on. Irritability, agitation, doubts in Gods goodness and love for you, fears, insecurity. Despair grumbling, complaining. How about some Holy Spirit joy. Remember if you are in Jesus all your circumstances are in Him. He sees you and he has got you. Sometimes we have to shift our focus.