A Blessing of Joy
Receiving blessing is one important way for us to nurture our human spirit. So I offer you this blessing today, that your spirit may be nourished and you may grow in the Lord Jesus Christ.
I call your spirit to attention, and I bless you with knowing the joy of the Lord. Joy is different from happiness. Happiness depends on what is happening to us – if our surroundings and circumstances are good, we are happy, if they are not, we are not happy. Joy transcends our situations, because it is centered in the One who can never change, the Lord God. The joy of the Lord can sustain us through the most horrific of trials, through the loneliest of places, through the darkest of nights. It is like a song that continually wells up in our hearts, regardless of what is going on around us. It is the result of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and the fruit that is born by our human spirit as it grows more and more into the likeness of Christ. It begins when we turn away from our efforts to control our own lives and set our own rules, and instead surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, accepting Him as our Saviour and King. I bless your spirit with this joy, that it would hunger after it and pursue it until it finds it in the only place where it is to be found, a joyous relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.