Grace feels good.
Enjoying God: Part 1 (6)
How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!
How great is the sum of them!
If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand;
When I awake, I am still with You. Psalm 139.17, 18
The joy of grace
I think we can agree that grace feels good. At least, when we’re aware of it. And this is because grace brings us into the joy of the Lord. Grace feels good because it is accompanied by joy.
Joy is a multifaceted affection. It includes gladness, which we might describe as temporary bursts of sudden and extraordinary happiness. Joy also brings satisfaction, a condition of wellbeing and contentment that makes us want to sing, “It is well with my soul!” Throughout the facets of the jewel of joy are sparkles and flashes of pleasure such as cannot be known anywhere else. Joy might also include weeping, tears that overflow from unspeakable joy—when we simply cannot express or experience joy in any other way.
We experience aspects of joy sometimes when we’re worshiping God, meditating on our great salvation, seeing evidence of His unfolding Kingdom, partaking of the Lord’s Supper, or communing with Him over His Word in sweet silence and contemplation. At such times we know we were made for joy, God’s joy, to enter and share in the joy He has in and of Himself. And while these times are mostly fleeting, they are real and sweet and good. And they remind us that we can enjoy the Lord more than we typically do.
Joy comes to us by the grace of God. We can’t gin it up. It does not depend on temporal conditions, much less on anything like possessions or experiences. Joy is from the Lord. We know it because He brings us into it by His grace. Grace is the mechanism, as it were, whereby we experience the joy of the Lord. And when we are aware of it, when the knowledge of God’s grace warms our soul—as in a service of praise and singing—then we know that grace feels good because grace brings us into the joy of the Lord.
But is our experience of grace and the joy it brings limited only to such times? Can we know the joy of God’s grace at other times? Or even, all the time? Increasingly?
We can, if we will remember what we know about grace.
A disposition communicated
We recall that grace is a divine disposition of favor. When God looks upon us, He has joy in doing so. Even when, as our heavenly Father, it is necessary for Him to discipline us (Heb. 12.1-3), His overall attitude toward us is grace, grace grounded in His own joy.
The knowledge of this favor is always available to us. God is always thinking about us, always looking upon us with grace and thus always seeking to bring us into His joy. We, however, tend to stray from grace, to leave off thinking about and being grateful for it. At such times we may feel as though God has turned His face away from us, that He no longer looks favorably upon us, and that we are wholly separated from His grace. We do not experience His joy, but that is not because God has discontinued His grace toward us, or stopped looking upon us and thinking about us as His children, His sheep, His beloved saints. He has not.
But we hear the psalmists from time to time calling out to God to turn His face upon them. They are expressing what they feel like has happened, but what they feel like has happened is the result of their turning away from God, not His turning away from them. And so it is with us. We can shade ourselves from the rays of the sun—sunscreen, sunglasses, umbrellas, dark rooms, and so forth. But the rays do not cease reaching us.
Just so, we may turn away from the grace of God—and hence, His joy—but His disposition of favor and the various ways God communicates that to us continue unabated. Through confession, repentance, and returning to our Father, we who tend toward prodigality—and that is every one of us at some time or to some extent—can recover our sense of grace and know again the joy that grace conveys. Through Jesus, wave upon wave of grace washes over us daily (Jn. 1.16), splashing upon and around and throughout us with the joy of the Lord.
Keep your eyes on Him and your roots in His Word, and you will know more of His constant grace and joy.
Grace in work
But grace is not merely how God looks upon us; grace also involves how we respond to God as He looks favorably and with joy upon us. We have been saved by grace—and its attendant joy—unto good works (Eph. 2.8-10). But we cannot do good works apart from Jesus and the grace He provides (Jn. 15.5). At the same time, whenever we do a good work—any good work, be it ever so small—we can know, indeed, we must discipline ourselves to remember and know, that this is only by the grace of God. God, Who looks upon us favorably and thinks about us continuously, has extended His grace to us so that, even in our direst times of need (Heb. 4.16), we might know His Presence at work within us, willing and doing of His good pleasure (Phil. 2.13), exercising His grace in and through us and bringing us into His joy.
Then we can acknowledge that grace and give thanks and praise to God for it. At which time we will know the joy of the Lord and find immense enjoyment in knowing Him at work in and through us for His glory.
All the work God has appointed to us—not just our “jobs” but not excluding them—finds us attended by the grace of God at the ready to enable us to serve Him and—as we have seen—thus to know His joy. The Lord conveys grace to us—divine working power—so that we might fulfill His Kingdom agenda (1 Cor. 4.20), know the filling and transforming work of His Spirit (Acts 1.8), and experience the joy of knowing Him knowing and caring for us.
Alas, though, for many who identify as Christians, this is not an exciting prospect. It’s not what they signed-up for when they believed, and it’s more than what they have come to accept as good enough for their experience of faith. Such believers should examine themselves and consider what, if not the enjoyment of our gracious God, is of utmost importance to them.
Yes, grace feels good as it abounds to us, and washes through us with the joy of the Lord. Enjoying God at deeper levels and with more pleasure and constancy can be ours by enhancing our awareness of and gratitude for His grace. The grace of God leads to enjoying Him, but only as we respond to that grace as God intends.
Search the Scriptures
1. How would you counsel a new believer to seek the grace of God each day?
2. Meditate on 2 Corinthians 4.15. Joy comes with the grace of God. How does God “spread” that grace, and to what ends?
3. Our faith in Jesus is never really “good enough.” Explain
Next steps—Transformation: Try to be more conscious of the ways God reaches you with His grace. As you do, give Him thanks and praise, and take pleasure in enjoying Him.
T. M. Moore
If you have found this meditation helpful, take a moment and give thanks to God. Then share what you learned with a friend. This is how the grace of God spreads (2 Cor. 4.15).
How should joy affect our lives as Christians? Our booklet, Joy to Your World!, can show you how both to know more of the Lord’s joy and to invite others into it as well. Order your copy by clicking here.
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Except as indicated, all Scriptures are taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
