Joy

I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy.

Philippians 1:3-4

If you are delivering something to a friend, the best way to arrive with that delivery is to begin your trip with it. Therefore, when the angels from heaven arrived on earth with “good tidings of great joy”—the news of the birth of Jesus—it meant they had left heaven with joy “in hand.” And news of great joy could not have originated in heaven if heaven was not a place of great joy itself. Indeed, twice in the book of Revelation heaven is exhorted to rejoice over the saving acts of God—not a hard thing for heaven to do (12:12; 18:20).

If Jesus wanted God’s will to be done “on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10), that means the joy of heaven should become the joy of God’s people on earth. To prove that joy is dependent on the power of heaven and not the pleasures of earth, Paul wrote his epistle of joy (Philippians) while imprisoned by the Romans. Fifteen different times in that one letter Paul proves it is possible to know the joy of heaven in the midst of earth’s hardest moments.

The secret to that joy, as Paul writes, is to “rejoice in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:3).

It is the very joy of this earthly life to think that it will come to an end.

C. H. SPURGEON