True joy

I’ve been reading Marcus Honeysett’s Finding joy: A radical rediscovery of grace (Intervarsity Press, 2005) over the last few days, and something that he wrote on p. 78 of his book really struck me. According to Honeysett, the key to finding true joy in life lies in a sentiment expressed by Paul in his letter to the Philippians:

“For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21)

This is how Marcus Honeysett explains it:

Although the verse doesn’t mention joy, it tells us Paul’s overriding aim for the whole of his life and death. Everything he is and all that he does is for the sake of Jesus Christ. … ‘To live is Christ’ tells us that Jesus is the whole of his life, the very measure by which all other things are valued. ‘To die is gain’ is, for me, one of the most challenging statements in the whole Bible. It says that when we lose absolutely everything else, if we have Christ, then we still gain. If we compare the value of everything else in life with having Jesus Christ and being with him in heaven, if we put all we have on one side of the scales and only Jesus on the other side we discover that he infinitely outweighs it all. (p. 78)

“To live is Christ and to die is gain” – I pray that one day I will genuinely, honestly, with no reservations and no thought of looking back, be able to say this along with Paul … because I know how true it is when Marcus Honeysett says that “Philippians 1:21 is the foundation for joy in the Christian life. … There is no Christian joy that doesn’t come from knowing [Jesus], worshipping him and finding hope in him. There may be happiness in other things, but not lasting joy, because all other things are secondary, mediocre and short-term compared to him” (p. 78).

I believe this wholeheartedly. I know it to be true. And I will never forget the day when I first understood what it felt like to have true joy. This happened a few years ago. It was just after I had spent several long evenings taking a new believer through some of the basic beliefs of the Christian faith. This is also the very first person in whose life I had a part to play in bringing to Christ (as far as I know). I was driving home in my car one evening and all of a sudden the realisation that eternity had changed for one person flooded over me. It was as if my heart opened, and my mind opened, and the heavens opened, and I realised that that was what true joy felt like. I realised in that instant that I had never known, never even come close to knowing, what joy was till that moment. I know it’s going to sound cliched written down, but what went through my mind was: This is the reason we are here. This is the reason I am living. There is absolutely nothing else that matters apart from living for God.

I think I walked on air for several weeks after that. I wish I could say that I’ve lived in a state of perpetual joy since that time, but that wouldn’t be honest. Amidst the pressures of life, as happens in this fallen world, I have not found it easy to be in a position where I am living completely and totally for God all the time. And yet I know how powerful and wise Paul’s words are, and I can testify that real joy (not just happiness) is only found in knowing Christ and living for him. So I say along with Paul,

“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:12-14).

So I press on, till such time when I can consistently and unreservedly say “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain”.