Tune My Heart, Episode 21
- Stacy Bishop
- Dec 12, 2024
- 3 min read
Happy Sunday, friend. As you prepare for worship this morning, let’s take a moment of quiet to invite God’s presence into your awareness today.
As we enter week 3 of the advent season, the focus becomes on joy.
At first thought, my mind went to the scripture “the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
In context, God had instructed the people to gather in Jerusalem and the prophet Ezra was reading to them the Book of the Law of Moses and explaining to them what it meant. And in a beautiful way, the people began to weep as they listened and understood the words God had given them. You can’t help but see the mourning as some response of guilt and shame as they realize their sins. And Nehemiah, Ezra and the Levites try to console the people.
We read this in Nehemiah 8:
10 Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks,
and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord.
Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
11 The Levites calmed all the people, saying, “Be still, for this is a holy day. Do not grieve.”
-Nehemiah 8:10-11
Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. While those words weren’t spoken to us, but very specifically to God’s people in this situation, I believe there is so much truth there. In the same way that losing our focus on Jesus in this busy Christmas season can steal our peace, as we talked about last week, we will find ourselves weak when we lose our focus on Jesus and the joy that He brings.
The writer of Hebrews says this:
“…fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
-Hebrews 12:2
Jesus, when He kept His focus on the joy of having reconciled His people to Himself, was able to endure the torture, shame and pain of His very public death. He was able to choose this, even knowing in advance the horrors He would experience, because His focus was properly placed on His Father and their plan for redemption. To take it even further, Jesus knew all of this in advance of being born as a mortal man and still chose to follow through on this master plan—because His eyes were fixed on the joy to come.
When we can fix our eyes on Jesus, the hope, peace, and joy that He brings, and even fix our eyes on Heaven—which is the true joy set before us—we can rest and find strength in this joy. The world can feel pretty bleak somedays. But the joy to come—the joy of heaven—will outweigh every pain, sorrow and trial we will feel here on earth.
Let’s carry that joy with us in this season and beyond.
Let’s pray.
God,
We could never begin to understand how Jesus so willingly took our sins to the cross. We like to avoid pain at every cost, but He willingly endured it for our sake. Thank You for sending Him to show us this beautiful picture of love. As we continue through this season, help us to keep our eyes fixed on You, fixed on eternal communion with You in heaven, and let that bubble up in us a joy that cannot be quelched by worldly circumstances. Your joy is our strength. We love You, God. May everything we do and say today be pleasing to you. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
A printable/downloadable version of today's devo can be found here:
Comments