joyindestructible

Life is a constant struggle. True, some have easier lives than others but no one is able to completely evade suffering. Every day, everything breathing, wakes up to the challenge of obtaining what is necessary to live one more day. No matter how much material wealth or relationships we gather, our next breath isn’t assured.  Everything we work to gain is also, fleeting and no matter what we gain, we must someday, let it go. This is true also, of our relationships and even of ourselves. Every step taken on this journey we call life, is taken beneath the shadow of death. Whether rich or poor, weak or strong, death is the equalizer of all human beings. No matter how grandiose the human race has become, our final fate seems to be no different from any other living creature.  Yet, within the heart of every person, there exists the idea of eternity. A common human hope for life free of death and therefore, outside the constraints of time. This common hope, when nurtured by faith in Jesus, is the spiritual well-spring of eternal joy that sustains the believer, even while living in a mortal world.

True joy, of eternal quality, can’t be found in the material world. It is spiritual and is spiritually received. It isn’t earned and it isn’t achieved by any religious practice. It is a gift from God and is a product of the gift of eternal life that only, Jesus offers to all who believe in Him. Joy is the strength of the believer and provides the endurance necessary, to survive the storms of life. I’m not speaking of worldly success or power but instead, the strength to maintain personal integrity and not be overcome by that shadow of death that seeks dominion over all. Even though I live in a material body that will someday, be destroyed by death, Jesus lives in me. My hope is in Him and in all that is part of the unseen, eternal world. God is Spirit. God is Love, God is Life. The joy in me is the living water that Jesus promised so long ago and just as death has no power over God, nothing death threatens me with can destroy the joy that faith in Jesus has produced in me.

The purpose of this blog is to share what the indestructible joy I have in Jesus means to me and how it has strengthened me during all of the struggles of my life. Jesus is the passion of my life and I wish to express that passion, by giving Him the credit for all that is good in me. There is no friend like Jesus and I am very blessed to be able to call Him my friend. I would not still be alive without Him. The shadow of death would have consumed all of me, long ago: but because He lives, I live too and the joy of eternal life bubbles up within me and over-flows. My desire is for none to perish but for all to experience this same eternal joy!