Joy in Christ

Wow what a beautiful day today! As the kids are napping, my house is clean and chores finished, laundry caught up, and no tv :), I have just enjoyed such a sweet time with the Lord. My heart grins at all that the Lord has done within me. I have truly experienced joy in Christ. Here is an excerpt from Experiencing God that I read a moment ago:

"Don't deny yourself that which is your birthright as a child of God. Don't be satisfied with a joyless life. There ought to be in every Christian a deep, settled fullness of the joy of Christ that no circumstance of life can dispel. This comes as you allow the Holy Spirit to express Himself in your life. One of the fruits of the spirit is joy (Gal. 5:22). This joy is unlike any happiness that is produced by the world. It fills you and permeates everything you do.

Jesus did not pray that you would merely be happy or even that you would escape grief. He prayed that you would have the same joy that the Father had given him: a divine joy, a joy that comes from a deep unwavering relationship with the Father. It is a joy that is grounded so firmly in a relationship with God that no change in circumstances could ever shake it. This is the kind of joy that Christ is praying will be in you."

Wednesday morning, Jay's grandad Pawpaw Lemonds had a biopsy taken of a spot they found on his lungs. We got a call yesterday from him that they had received the results from the biopsy. When Jay answered the phone, his pawpaw said something I will never forget. He replied (with a smile on his face I am sure) "Well the Lord has given me a free ticket to see Him!" In other words, the result is that it is cancer, the slow growing kind. We don't know much else; they go back to the doctor in Tupelo this week. However, I do know that his granddad has experienced TRUE JOY IN CHRIST. Like Pawpaw, I desire to be so rooted in Him that no "bad news" or circumstance could shake my joy in Him. How deep are your roots???