I Want To Praise You Lord — Maranatha Singers
You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy. – 1 Peter 1:8
Few believers have had the privilege of walking and talking with Jesus when He was on the earth (John 20:29). But most of us have shared the experience of joy that Peter speaks of even though we have never had a personal, physical relationship with Jesus. Nevertheless, because we have believed in the King of kings without ever seeing Him we have experienced that “inexpressible joy,” a phrase that is used in the New Testament only in this verse. Remember the day when you first asked Jesus into your heart and you knew He was real?
“Inexpressible joy depicts an all-consuming joy that overwhelms us so that we are unable to totally express our feelings of gratitude to our glorious God.”*
Some like to equate happiness with this kind of joy but happiness is not true joy because it’s so temporary. Being happy is certainly not wrong, but it is more equated with pleasure. It’s an emotion that usually doesn’t last very long. We’re happy when we get a raise—but it doesn’t take us long to spend it. Then we want another raise. We’re happy when we can buy a new car, but that new car smell doesn’t take long to go away. We’re happy when we can buy a new home but how long before we want to remodel it because we think it’s too small or not up to date?
Joy on the other hand, certainly can include happiness but it comes with an eternal value because, in the spiritual sense, it comes as a result of God doing something in our lives that we couldn’t do for ourselves to make us better. It’s an internal work that is lasting. It’s the knowledge that God is maturing us so that we can become complete in Him.
I recently read that the command that is repeated most often in the Bible is, “Rejoice.” We are commanded to be joyful, not for God’s sake but for ours. Joy is more than mere positive thinking or pumping oneself up with compliments and encouragement. Joy has at its root God’s very own nature.
To rejoice, or to experience that “inexpressible joy” is to recognize that we have a reason to be full of joy because God is on our side and has willfully and eternally embraced us as His own (1 John 3:1-2). So be joyful, saints of God, because our Lord thinks we’re so special that He wants to make us even better. Maranatha!
*Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Commentary
