Though we, as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, are to despise hypocritical stage play performances, there is a genuine gladness and gaiety in the Christian spirit that ought to be manifested. I delight in Christ, in what I have in Christ and what I am in Christ. In the bitterest and most disappointing circumstance, if I as a believer in Jesus Christ can only reflect on what my relationship to God is in Christ, I can rejoice on the one hand while sorrowing on the other. Paul writes in II Corinthians 1:5, “For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ.” Again in the tenth verse of chapter six He said, “… as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing and yet possessing all things.” As a believer in Jesus Christ I possess all and have need of nothing, “Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; And ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s” I Corinthians 3:21-23. Paul wrote to the Philippians and encouraged them to “Rejoice in the Lord always” (4:4); and expressed his own great joy in prayer upon every remembrance of them (1:3). When writing to them in 1:12-20, he rejoiced in the good that came out of his persecution. He anticipated joy in death, as well as life. He told them in 2:1-11 that his cup of joy was full. When he expressed this he was not in the midst of a successful preaching campaign; he was in a jail cell waiting possible decapitation. A well known American evangelist, Vance Havner, wrote about the death of his wife: “A fair-weather Christianity will never carry us through such times as these. We are not always on the bright side but we are on the right side and the right side will be the bright side ultimately but not always immediately. For the joy set before Him our Lord endured the cross, despising the shame. It gets darker before it gets brighter. We are not saved to be Pollyanna’s wearing rose-colored glasses, waving ‘Cherrio,’ and painting the clouds with sunshine. Our Lord was neither an optimist nor a pessimist but a Realist.” We as believers are common with the apostle. We have Christ as our substitute and satisfaction before God. We have the same gospel promises to fill up our hope in Christ. We have the same Spirit as our comforter. Therefore we have access to all that Paul had to make us both ‘abound in consolation’ and to ‘rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.’ As Paul said to the Church at Philippi so Christ says to all His believing people, “rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say rejoice.” ~~Terry Worthan, 1938-2022
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