Choose JoySample

DAY 50 - HIS PRESENCE, WITH GREAT JOY

Reflection: On the last of our 50-day Choose Joy devotional, what better Scripture to turn to than Jude's famous doxology that concludes his brief letter of warning and encouragement to the church:

'To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy - to the only God our Saviour be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.' (Jude 24, 25 NIV)

Jude (Judah or Judas - Ioudas) identifies himself as the brother of James, which makes him not only the servant of Jesus (Jude 1:1), but his brother too. He uses a word for joy not commonly used by 'secular' writers of the day, but significant in the New Testament.

Jesus will present us to God faultless and with exceeding, exuberant, intense, wild, welcoming joy - agalliasis - the same joy experienced by John the Baptist in the womb on hearing the greeting of Mary; of the newly-birthed church as they met house to house (Acts 2:46), and it is agalliasis joy that covers us like oil (Heb 1:9).

For Jude, this jubilant joy accompanies our arrival before the Father in heaven, carried there by our Lord Jesus Christ. We are caught up in the culmination of history - the people of God, the redeemed across the ages, finally restored to their rightful relationship and place - the 'glorious presence' of the only God and Saviour.

And it is this promise that has fuelled life-strengthening joy in the hearts of millions of Christians through the worst and best of times across the centuries. He will keep us from stumbling; he will not forget us. Every day and every moment is gathered up in his love so that through Jesus, we find our way home.

This longing for eternity is in all our hearts, and we either spend our days ignoring it and the emptiness that results, or we spend our days searching for it in all the wrong (and destructive) places. Or it is a longing that is gloriously and joyfully fulfilled when we surrender our emptiness, our searching, to the God and Saviour that Jude knew as a brother and gladly served - 'Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now, and forevermore! Amen'.

Choose joy: We hope that through these 50 days, the joy found in God through the Son by the Spirit is now more firmly embedded in your life, providing strength, colour, warmth, and vitality. Choose Joy is presented by Glow Church (Gold Coast, Australia). A key part of this journey of joy has been found in worshipping in church. If we can assist you in any way with your Christian growth or in finding a church home, please visit glowchurch.com and keep an eye out for more devotions from us, here on YouVersion.