18 Feb The DNA of Joy

It’s been a tough month for me health-wise. In late January I had COVID. After five days, the symptoms cleared. About a week after that, I developed new symptoms, apparently unrelated to COVID (Ramona also dealt with both). As I write this, I have just started on prescription eye drops for bacterial conjunctivitis (pink eye) that I have in both eyes. These illnesses have disrupted our lives and our ministry. It would have been easy to become discouraged by all of this. But I can honestly say that we did not.

  Author Paul Tripp writes that “The DNA of joy is thankfulness.” Tripp then asks, “Have you ever noticed that entitled complaining people don’t happen to be very joyful? I most certainly have noticed that. I used to be one of them. To say I had a sense of entitlement would be like saying “Julie Andrews can sing a little.” It’s one of the great understatements of our time.

Before I turned to Jesus I was, well, obnoxious. I try not to think about those who served me in restaurants, banks, car dealerships or anywhere else. I wish I could apologize to them all. Tripp’s diagnosis is spot on. A lack of gratitude produces a lousy attitude. The Apostle Paul  gave a directive which seems impossible to follow:

…be filled with the Spirit, 19 speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, 20 always giving thanks to God the Father for everything,(emphasis mine) in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 5:19-20 (NIV)

Paul tells us elsewhere that lack of thankfulness is the cause of sin: For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Romans 1:21 (NIV)

Paul in both passages is talking about a state of being, not the act of thanking. Is our very existence built around gratitude for what Jesus did? He left Heaven for us while we were unworthy. He died for us while we were unworthy. He paid for all our sins, past present and future, while we were unworthy. His grace protects us in the here and now and buys us eternity with Him. If your life’s foundation is the vertical reality of what Jesus did for you, then your thankfulness for it should eclipse any horizontal dissatisfaction you may have.

COVID knocked me off my feet. How does that compare with the fact I am already a citizen of Heaven? Shortly after, a cold knocked me off my feet again. How does that compare with knowing that I am forgiven for all my sins. My eyes are a gunky mess. Does that in any way compare with knowing that God gives me the strength to do whatever He wants me to accomplish?

Here’s another way to look at it. Think of Paul’s words as a dial on our hearts. Is our heart set for perpetual gratitude for all Christ has done for us, the vertical setting, or is it set on “I want more,” the horizontal setting. When we come to accept that nothing on this earth is more than Jesus, we now have the spiritual DNA of Joy.

Pastor Jerry Bader