THE JOY AND PEACE OF THE SPIRIT

FRIDAY 10 DECEMBER 2021

The joy and peace of the Spirit are the promises of God in the Scriptures which have been fulfilled in Christ Jesus, and they are part of the greatest testimony of every born again Christian. Joy and peace go hand in hand and such combination is supernatural, because through the Holy Spirit, they are brought into effect in our lives, as having great impact and influence.

Reference: Isaiah 55:12 New International Version (NIV) "You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands."

The Bible says that you are blessed in your going out because you shall go out with joy and be guided in peace. This assures you that the Holy Spirit is at work because among the fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22 are joy and peace. If you go out in joy and are led out in peace, it means that you're walking in step with the Holy Spirit. And that is the beautiful description of the glorious effect of the prevalence of His guidance in your life; and it is even more true now than it was in the time of Isaiah because in Christ Jesus, the Holy Spirit, our permanent witness, indwells and governs us permanently.

Romans 15:13 (NLT) says, "I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit." Beloved, joy and peace are priceless; they are the satisfactory answer to anxiety. In a nutshell, joy and peace are effects of righteousness characterized by a sensus divinitatis (a sense of the divine). They are the morality embedded within our very makeup as the new creation made to reflect the image of Christ, as we yield wholly to the Holy Spirit.

Joy and peace are the emotional form of God's special blessing for His people. They are permanent blessing God intends His people to possess and live by in their Christian faith and practice. At the same time, they are kind of emotional intelligence found both in creation and in humans because according to our referenced Scripture, the mountains, the hills and the trees of the field can express them, but humans express them to a greater extent.

Remarkably, the Scripture notes that the mountains and hills burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Although its a metaphor, what does this mean? Here God is making prophetic utterance about you through prophet Isaiah, and it means that all the forces of nature are conditioned to work in your favour, as you go about fulfilling your daily activity. It is the essence of nature activating their connection to you. The significance is that there is a shared experience between you and nature, thereby improving your performance, which is crucial to your flourishing.

Prophet Isaiah used this metaphor to get our attention to the power of nature in responding to the witness or proof of God's Spirit within us. The expression of their abstract reactions such as "bursting into song" and "clapping hands" signifies that something greater in you awakens their sense of spark or dynamism. So the essence of joy and peace of the Spirit being your overflow of vitality as you "go out" is driving the universe and all within it to comply with your goodly expectations and establish them in your world. In addition, it is also the Lord watching over your coming and going out, according to Psalm 121:8 (AMP). Shalom!

Scripture Reading - Psalm 16:11; Acts 2:28; Romans 14:17; Philippians 4:4-7; Philemon 1:7.

Exuberant Declaration: I have a well-ground state of approval and favour with God as the evidence of my justification by faith. Through the righteousness of Christ in me, I experience the inward joy and eternal peace of mind, and daily, I hold onto this joy and peace of the Holy Spirit, who is the perfection of goodness in me. Glory to God!