Joyful in His House of Prayer

Posted on by Jennifer Arimborgo

man-in-red-crew-neck-sweatshirt-photography-941693

“Every time I pray for all of you, I do it with joy” (Phil. 1:4, GW).

By nature, I tend to be a pretty serious person. I’ve never had to be chided, “Come on, take this seriously.” Instead, I’ve tended to err in the opposite direction, that of being a little overly intense about everything. Can you relate to this? Holy Spirit has been faithfully at work in this aspect of me. For a number of years now, He has been teaching me about joy.

You and I, and everyone alive, need more and more of this gift in our lives. It’s no coincidence that joy comes in number two in our list of the fruit of the Spirit, right after love. As we learn from Nehemiah, His joy is our very strength. Real, Holy Spirit joy infuses us with vitality.

I have been soaking myself a lot in Philippians recently. Did you know that Paul used the words “joy” and “rejoice” a total of sixteen times in this short book? He even wrote of rejoicing about spiteful people preaching the gospel for malicious reasons. He composed this letter to his brothers and sisters as he suffered in prison, and yet he couldn’t stop repeating words about his joy. The bubbling spring of his supernatural rejoicing could not be stopped up by the cruelty of his captors.

As you notice, our verse for today is from this book. “Every time I pray for all of you, I do it with joy” (Phil. 1:4, GW). I believe Holy Spirit wants to speak to our hearts specifically today about the joy He wants to give us in our prayer lives. Prayer is not meant to be a mostly somber occasion. He desires to light up our hearts with Heaven’s joy as we engage with Him in the highest privilege of all: communion and conversation with our Daddy God.

No matter what we are going through, real, supernatural joy is available. Let’s ask the Father to develop this Holy Spirit fruit in our lives more and more. And let’s joyfully anticipate His answer.

“I will… make them joyful in My house of prayer” (Isa. 56:7, NKJV).

****************************************

Why do we hear a lot of sermons about love and faith but not as much about joy?

 

 

11 thoughts on “Joyful in His House of Prayer”

  1. One of the first things Jennifer I ever heard the Holy Spirit say to me was BE PRAISE, come with JOY! It was not get down on your knees and be sorry for all the terrible things you have done and be afraid. IT WAS BE PRIASE! COME WITH JOY! THE LORD has released us from all the shame of sin. We often I think have such a terrible perspective of our loving Father. I am coming to realize more and more joy is not an emotion but having HIM with me on the inside every day! Have a wonderful day and GOD BLESS….Go with HIM, WITH JOY!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  2. Yes, Jennifer, why is this the case ? Maybe because we and those teaching the word know very little about true joy. We focus often on scripture that says-Jesus was a man of sorrow! I was raised in my early years in the catholic denomination. I can not recall what would be described as JOY. Over the years, I have visited a number of churches and joy was rarely evident. WHY? I believe the enemy again takes what God has given us [JOY] and distorts it by causing us to feel guilty when we try to enter into joy. Just as he purswaded Adam and Eve in the garden that God was holding back something good [knowledge] he manipulates our Father’s purpose and gift of joy. Len

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  3. i can relate to this. Because I feel and have empathy to suffering even as a small child I tended to be serious and non-exuberant in nature. It was in my teens and early 20’s when I discovered that THE JOY OF LORD is our STRENGTH did not mean ‘externally’ but is the INNER JOY which surprises even in tragedy. This is because of relationship with the Divine. Now I have discovered that the key to intercession is loving, feeling but ‘releasing to God….all the inner turmoils etc and letting Him replace my ‘feelings’ with His Love, Joy, Peace, It is a work in progress but JOY is surely what our world needs now. Not the hyped up forced fun like joy but the deep, deep Joy from relationship with Jesus Christ. Thank you and Blessings.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Wonderful, wonderful thoughts and wisdom, dear Faye. Yes, that is SUCH a vitally important lesson to learn, being able to release back to Him the intercessory burdens that He shares with us from His heart! Thank you so much for touching on that 🙂

      Like

      Reply

Leave a comment