Joy in Believing

Since Reformation Sunday has just past, these thoughts of Luther speak to me.

Joy in Believing

Christ is a God of joy… A Christian should be and must be a (person) of joy.

The devil is the spirit of sadness, but God is the Spirit of joy, and he is our salvation.

We have more occasions for joy than sadness. The reason is we believe in the living God, and Christ lives, and we shall live also.

God can make himself known only through those works of his, which he reveals in us, which we feel and experience within ourselves. When the experience is to learn that he is a God who looks into the depths and helps principally the poor, despised, afflicted, miserable, forsaken and those who are of no account, at that very moment a love for him is created and surges up from the heart’s core. The heart overflows with gladness, and leaps and dances for the joy it has found in God.

In this experience the Holy Spirit is active, and has taught us in the flash of a moment the deep secret of joy.

You will have as much joy and laughter in life as you have faith in God.

Martin Luther, quoted in The Joy of the Christian

I’d like to have someone who embodies Luther’s joy around for those times when I feel too morose!

But his words are a good reminder!

Joy to you,

Leighton Ford