Soulfood

Gunner Gundersen

Our relationship with joy often feels complicated. Joy is evasive. We have regrets. There are relational tangles we can’t undo. Besetting sins seem more difficult. Our minds get in ruts and loops.

Paul’s joy can feel…annoying. What’s with this guy? There are no spiritual giants. We are all human. But Paul’s joy was real, and it endured. Paul is enthused about his Savior. We want Christian joy. But we don’t want thin joy. We want thick joy. What’s the difference?

Thin joy is one-dimensional and surface-ey.

Thick joy is multi-dimensional and accommodates depression, fear, and anxiety.

Thin joy is fleeting

Thick joy is tough

Thin joy is all on and only joyful

Thick joy coexists with weeping

2 Corinthians 4

Paul set off on the way of the cross from the day he was captured by Christ. Paul is not playing the world’s game. He inverts all the values of Greco-Roman culture. He renounces the underhanded ways that worldly folk use to get ahead in life – to gain worldly power, worldly honor, worldly success. He seeks power but cruciform power. He works for honor but the honor of Christ, not his own. He knows that success isn’t measured by the standards of this world.

The key to Paul’s joy: Daily renewal – Paul is being renewed (passive) day by day (v16). Though we are subject to change and decay, we do not lose heart. There is a process at work in us – new creation light is breaking in!

The Spirit is always creating, and the Spirit is creative. He uses all manner of means to renew us daily and break in to our lives with joy. The small and secret things are what are changing us day by day and from one degree to another, from glory to glory. (Ch 3:18) The world says Go big or Go home. Paul says be faithful in the little things day by day and the Spirit will bring life incrementally.

Joy cannot be stored up for tomorrow. Grace cannot be stored up for tomorrow. Tomorrow we will be needy again. And tomorrow God’s grace will be sufficient. The joy we seek will be given to us tomorrow as it was today.

Thick joy is learned. A large tree grows ring by ring. Each ring is small. That is sanctification. Waiting for the growth brings joy.

1 Cor. 5:9 God gives the growth. We are looking for things that are unseen.

2 Cor. 4:17-18 these words bend beneath their own weight. We need to keep looking to the things that are unseen every day. We need daily reminding of these things to renew our joy every day.

Grace notes must be looked for. But they ring true. And they bring joy.

We know that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. For it is all for our sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.

So rejoice, and again I say rejoice!