This is the third in the series on Blessings for the Fruit of the Spirit, starting with "Keeping In Step With The Spirit." You may access these in the devotional archives at www.thefathersbusiness.com, if you missed them.

Beloved child of God, listen to your Father's heart and his ways for you in Galatians 5:22-23,25. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control... Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit."

Listen to God's Word for you in Nehemiah 8:10. "The joy of the Lord is your strength."

God's purpose in his creation was his own pleasure. He rejoices in all his works (Ps 104:31). Job 38:7 says that God laid the foundations of the earth and marked off its dimensions and did all his work of creation while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy. Imagine the same joy of God when he created you! Your Father is joy, and he plants his joy inside you in the person of his Son. Jesus lives in joy in you.

Be blessed to drink deeply of the joy that God your Father has in you as his beloved. Be blessed with his understanding of joy, not the world's fickle happiness. Be blessed to know the joy of the Lord that gives you the strength to go forward, to press on, to endure hardship. Be blessed with the oil of joy that flows from heaven. God commands for you the blessing of life in his joy, defeating depression, destruction, and death.

Joy is the quiet, inner sense of well-being in Jesus, but it also can be intense emotion. Be blessed with rejoicing with intensity that words cannot fully express. Be blessed with Christ's overflowing joy that bubbles up in you to flow out of you (Phil 1:26). He promises joy that nobody and nothing can take away (John 16:22). Be blessed as you are filled with the joy that the Holy Spirit imparts in your place in the kingdom (Rom 14:17).

Joy can also be a daily decision and a battle. You can count it all joy in trials of any kind, when you know that your Father does all things well for you. Be blessed as you pursue Jesus who is joy. He came so that you can have this kind of joy. It is his gift to you (Rom 15:13). Be blessed in the incomparable joy of Jesus (Heb 12:2). Be blessed to be energized for each new day and each new challenge with joy that comes from him.

Have you ever been blessed to watch someone laugh? You laughed too, for no other reason than that they were joyful. Be contagious with joy in gratitude that you share in the inheritance of his holy people who live in his light (Col 1:11-12). Be blessed to be an ambassador of joy in a world filled with stress and sadness. Be blessed as you spread joy wherever you touch the lives of others. Be blessed to lighten the load of others and strengthen weary hearts with the joy of Jesus. Be blessed to brighten and refresh the weary spirits of others with joyful confidence in Jesus.

Be blessed with the joy that the Spirit of joy produces in you,
your response to his joy (Gal. 5:22).