If we knew just how infectious joy really is we would never let its tide go out.
Admittedly, I have met some matter-of-fact type people who, despite their lack of obvious joy, have brought upliftment wherever they go. However, I wouldn’t exactly recommend your average armchair stoic as the best example of the joyful at heart.
As a rule, joy overflows. It shows on your face and it radiates from your very presence.
When Paul and Silas were in the Philippian jail singing and praising God at midnight, what everyone was hearing was expressions of joy. Even with the earthquake, I doubt that the jailor would have rushed out crying, “What must I do to be saved?” if he had just endured hours of miserable preaching from bitter Christians.
Joy is the stuff that stops a person long enough to ask themselves why Christians are happy when they are not supposed to be. Surely, they reason, the constraints imposed upon Christians should make them anything but joyful. Sadly, Christians haven’t always helped to dispel this perception.
Joy begins at baptism and reaches its height when we meet the Lord face-to-face. In fact, it is Christ–our living hope–that generates that joy within our being. Jude says, “To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy” (Jude 24).
Joy is such an attractive thing, that as a natural extension to your faith and integrity, it moves hearts.
“Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:8-9).
John Staiger