When most people think about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they hear “we are sinners,” and “Jesus died on the cross and was raised three days later to rescue us from our sin.” Our trusting in this rescue — our faith — grants us eternal life and heaven. This by itself, often gives Christians joy.
As our church has been studying the book of Job, we noticed that Satan accused Job of only worshipping God to get something from Him. That is an attitude Christians often take when we look to Jesus to save us. Sometimes we only worship Him so we can get heaven from Him. If we only received heaven, this would be enough to worship God, but we are called to greater joy than heaven alone.
Job discovered this greater joy when he questioned God about why he was suffering. We may find this difficult to believe but God actually showed up to answer Job’s questions! In God’s presence Job found something greater than what he was asking — Job rediscovered God and the joy of knowing God.
Knowing Jesus is what makes God so unique. Jesus Christ is the exact representation of God to us. God continues to show up so that we can meet Him through Jesus Christ. Knowing Jesus allows us to know a personal, magnificent, loving God and this relationship fills our heart with an even greater joy than heaven or salvation by themselves.
When Job met God he ended up having joy he didn’t think possible. I believe he named his children as representatives of the joy he found: Jemimah, Keziah , Keren-Happuch (Job 42:14). Now I am not a Hebrew scholar but my best understanding is these Hebrew words represent joy in different ways.
Rough translations put them this way: Jemimah = “dove;” Keziah = “cinnamon like spice;” and Keren-Happuch = “horn of paint/eye makeup.” So for our understanding Job named his daughters: “Delicate, Graceful Bird,” “CinnaBon,” and “Beautiful to Look at.”
Those are names of a person full of joy. Can you imagine naming your daughter CinnaBon? Doesn’t just the thought of that name bring a smile to your face? And Job’s joy came from knowing God.
We’re going to have a Revival on Friday, July 20 and Saturday, July 21 at 7 p.m. at the Wilmington Church of Christ where Evangelist Aaron Davis will be teaching about Joy. If you have any questions about obtaining joy by knowing Jesus, e-mail me at [email protected] . Or if you’re interested in learning more about joy in a face-to-face relationship, come visit us while we have revival in July.
Dale McCamish is senior minister at the Wilmington Church of Christ.
