MAGAZINE LETTER FOR NOVEMBER 1989
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Dear Friends,

What is the Apostle Paul speaking about and praying for in Ephesians chapter 3 and verses 14 to 19. I am continually returning to this passage, for the answer to this prayer of the apostle is to experience deep joy and contentment.

What Paul is praying for is that, deep in our inner being, we may know the love which Christ has for us, and experience it more and more deeply.

If we grow in the experience of Jesus loving us, and in how much he has loved us, then we will know ever deeper experiences of his joy and happiness.

The point I am making is this. Real Christian joy is something deep within. It is not found simply by outward activity. It is experienced by the operation of the Holy Spirit strengthening our Inner being with his power, and revealing to us the love Jesus has for us, and making us experience it.

The Spirit uses what we call the means of grace - prayer, the Bible and worship, but this joy can’t be created by these things by themselves without the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit who makes the Bible live. It is the Spirit who makes prayer vital. It is the Spirit who uses worship to our blessing.

The importance of the Spirit in the means of grace can be seen in the case of worship. If we seek to create joy by lively worship, we may indeed have an uplifting time, but it is only our ordinary humanity that is touched, and there is no lasting joy.

Such meetings are exciting and enjoyable, but the uplift of them soon wears off, and in a short time, perhaps a day or so, we feel flat and wonder what has happened and why the glow has left us.

What we do then is to seek the stimulus again. But each time it does not have quite the same power, and we need things to be a little more lively to gain the same uplift.

This is puzzling and worrying. What we don’t realise is that the joy we are experiencing is not the real joy given by the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes a meeting can be very full of the Spirit and deep in our inner being we experience something of the length and breadth and depth and height of the love of Jesus for us. Then we make the mistake of identifying the blessing with the particular form that the service or meeting has taken when the Spirit blessed us, and we seek to repeat the blessing by repeating that particular type of meeting.

What we should do is not to seek the joy in the type of meeting, but from the Spirit.

If we come to worship, or Bible Study, or spiritual activity with this prayer the Apostle prayed, and pray it earnestly and sincerely, then any type of service or activity, if it is spiritual and according to God’s Word, may be the vehicle through which the Holy Spirit blesses us.

It may not be in a service at all. Quietly, while we pray alone, the Spirit will come upon us and we will be overwhelmed by a sense of Jesus’ love for us, to such an extent that our frail body is almost unable to hold it all.

What I am saying is this. Do you want real and wonderful joy. Then seek it from the Spirit in prayer. You will then find that the type of meeting or activity does not matter, for the Spirit can use any means, and does do so, to bless those hungry for the love of Jesus.

This joy lasts. It does not evaporate in a day or two. It is not a tiring excitement but a lasting peace. It is marked by a desire to pray and for the comfort of the Scriptures.

It is a joy that gives strength for the tasks of every day. We find an inner strength to overcome sin and serve Jesus and cope with all that life brings.

It is a joy that rubs off on others, and we have fellowship with them and are able to minister to them.

This joy that Christ gives is the experience of his love - that we are forgiven all our sins; that he loves us even knowing the worst about us; that we are precious to him; that he will never leave us or forsake us; that he is preparing a place in heaven for us. In love Jesus says. "I have taken the punishment of your sins in my body on the cross".

This Joy is ever increasing because we can never reach the depth of his love. There is always more of the length and breadth and depth and height of it.

Make Paul’s prayer in these Ephesian verses your prayer. Pray it till you know the love of Christ which passes knowledge and are filled with all the fulness of God.

Your servant for Christ’s sake,