Here’s A Prescription For Living With Indescribable Joy

Lately, I’ve been thinking about what an indescribable level of joy we would enter into in life if we really didn’t just say It’s All About Jesus, just to say it and sound spiritual, but we really began to understand what that means.

You see, if it’s really all about Jesus then why do we care who does what in life? If we are really living for God’s glory alone then would it matter if we were doing a job that the world considered lowly. I don’t think so. Let me explain why.

If you’re a parent you probably know how crazy everything can get if your children think that the whole world revolves around them. Life can get downright rough when that’s the case because kids who have this perception can be very hard to please. We have most definitely reminded our girls on a number of occasions that they are not the center of the universe…because they’re not. None of us are.

In fact, I just pulled one of my daughters aside recently and had a talk with her about this very thing. I kept noticing on numerous occasions when her sister was getting attention from other people she didn’t care for that too much. She was struggling with jealousy and would immediately go into action, without even totally realizing what she was doing, to make sure some of the attention was turned toward her. Guess why I recognized this attitude in her? Because it reminded me of the way I was before I had a radical encounter with radical grace!

I felt it necessary to bring this to her attention so she would understand what she was doing and why. I explained to her what I had been noticing, talked to her about it for a while and then I asked her this question. I said, “What if it was God’s will for your sister to be a famous singer and He wanted you to work for her and spend your life supporting her.” You should have seen the look of terror on her face.

As a parent, I truly believe these types of things need to be discussed and I feel they need to be discussed in a much deeper way than us just saying to our kids in frustration, ‘stop being prideful” or “stop being jealous of your sister.” We need to help our kids understand the things they don’t currently see, but we can do it in a grace based way. I told my daughter that day that I truly understood what she was going through and how I’d also struggled with this problem for a very long time.

After we talked a while I reminded her that what matters most is that each of us fulfill the call of God on our own life, not that we be noticed by people. I reminded her that once she allows God to bring her to the place where she is living for His glory alone she will also come to the place where she no longer craves other people’s attention. Instead she will find herself being content and satisfied knowing the great love that her Heavenly Father has for her and simply knowing that she is doing whatever He wants her to do in life. I could tell that a light was coming on as she agreed with me and began to look relieved. It’s always major relief when we are freed from ourselves, isn’t it?

This Summer for the first time I volunteered for one week of JUMP camp, our church’s Vacation Bible School. Between week 1 and week 2 of camp there were almost 6,000 kids and well over 1,000 volunteers.

We all attended a volunteer training session and Pastor Ed , who led the training, reminded us to do what we do as unto the Lord and not to be seen by others. He asked us to be ready and willing to be moved from the area we were currently assigned to volunteer in to a totally different area if they needed to move us. For instance, be willing to be moved from group leader to working as a bathroom monitor if needed.

I smiled in the training meeting that day while imagining this scenario and I am getting choked up right now typing this out because I sat there and remembered the years that I would have been so upset if someone moved me from group leader to bathroom monitor. I would have had the attitude, “How dare they do that. Don’t they know my great gifts and talents?”

But thankfully, because of the work that God’s grace had done in my heart, that day during volunteer training I could sit there filled with joy because I knew that my radical encounter with Jesus (Who is Grace) had changed me to the point where I could care less what I did or if anyone noticed because I wasn’t doing it for people anymore. I was doing it for my Savior. Talk about major relief!

It took a while though, for God to bring me to the place where I am now.

I remember during the first year of my grace journey God actually instructed me not to serve in church because I had done these types of things for so long for the wrong reasons (trying to be holy, trying to earn righteousness, hoping others would see my good deeds) that God didn’t release me to volunteer again until I got a real solid revelation of His grace and of who I was in Christ.

I remember it being so hard on me at times when our pastor would stand up and talk about things the church was doing in the community and encourage us to help out and I knew I was not suppose to volunteer. I remember thinking several times that year, “What are they going to think of me if I don’t volunteer?”

Well, first of all they weren’t thinking anything of me, which was another revelation I needed to get. Everyone wasn’t thinking of me constantly – shock of the world! Big relief when I got this revelation though.

Secondly, the fact that I was only signing up to volunteer because I wanted others to think well of me was ‘oh so wrong.’ But thankfully, God’s grace worked me through all of this and I remember when God released me at the end of that year to volunteer for the Christmas outreach where we went door to door and gave away bags with Christmas meals in them.

I had the best time volunteering for that outreach because God had brought me to the point where I was doing it for Jesus and not to be seen by people. I’m crying again, typing this. I can’t help it. God has been so good to me to deliver me from these things. I know I’ll never get over it…and I’m glad. I don’t want to get over it. I want to spend the rest of my life thanking God over and over and over and over again for His grace!

Do you know how freeing this is? Do you know how filled with joy a person can be when they live this way? You can truly have joy unspeakable when you really begin to live your life for Jesus alone!

For me personally, as I said before, this transition came in my life when I began to see the truth about God’s grace.

Grace is God’s unmerited, unearned, undeserved favor. Let’s consider this further.

• This means God’s unconditional love is an aspect of His grace.
• God’s complete forgiveness of all of our sins – past sins, present sins and future sins – is an aspect of His grace.
• The gift of righteousness that we have been given is a result of God’s grace.
• God being willing to give up His only Son to die in our place for our sin so that we would have the privilege to have a personal relationship with Him is His grace.
• The fact that Jesus was willing to come and be our one final sacrifice for all time and for all people who would choose to believe in Him is His grace.
• The great exchange – us getting to exchange everything we are not for everything Jesus is – is proof of His grace.
• The fact that we, as Believer’s, are taken out of Adam and placed into Christ and get to live our lives in Christ Jesus is grace.
• Healing
• Peace
• Preservation
• Protection
• Wholeness in every way

These are all aspects of God’s great grace!

This, my friend, is why I am able to live my life filled with indescribable joy and this is why you can too.

When we realize that it really, truly is all about Jesus and that we get to live our lives in Christ Jesus and He will live His life through us, we also suddenly realize that we have NOTHING left to prove. We already have all the security in Christ that we will ever need. This security in Christ allows us to simply do what our Heavenly Father asks us to do without rating it based on the world’s rating system. It hits us. We finally get it. We say, I see it clearly now God. Whatever You call me to do, just the fact alone that You have instructed me to fulfill that particular task gives the task an off the charts majorly important job rating! I don’t even need to know what others think about it as long as I’m fulfilling Your will for me.

Jesus was our ultimate example in this. He said this in John 6:38 (NLT):