“Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!” (Psalm 32:11).
This time of the year within the ‘Christian’ world at least, one will hear more than ever the familiar carol that rings out, “Joy to the world the Lord has come.” And it is only right that we do rejoice in this wonderful historic fact. The eternal Son of God took upon Himself humanity in order to do His Father’s will. God Himself became man, at the incarnation where he was born of a woman: the babe in Bethlehem! This caused great joy in the heavenly realm and also overflowed from those mere mortals who were witnesses to this divine intrusion. (Lk.2)
But if we stop there, we only can rejoice and celebrate half of this miraculous story.
God is deeply interested in our fullness of joy (Jn. 15:11). In other words knowing only half the story about God’s grace will never provide the kind of joy that will fill us to overflowing, as God desires.
C. H. Spurgeon once said; When the heart is full of joy, it always allows its joy to escape. It is like the fountain in the marketplace; whenever it is full it runs away in streams, and so soon as it ceases to overflow, you may be quite sure that it has ceased to be full. The only full heart is the overflowing heart.
The question for us all is; “is my heart, overflowing with joy?” Or, “is my life marked & characterized with a fullness of joy?” According to Phil. 4:4. We should be rejoicing in the Lord always.
As believers we know and can rejoice in the whole redemptive plan of God’s grace from beginning to end - from the cradle to the cross, to His ascension, to His coming again, to the consummation of the ages. This gives the believer, the “righteous & upright in heart” more reason than anything else in the whole world to be happy and to rejoice in.
May we “be glad in the Lord and rejoice…”