God’s Communicable Attribute of Joy!

Did you know that joy is a communicable attribute of God?  It’s true. There are attributes that God has, that that are communicable to us and joy is one of them.  Anyone who does hospice work knows that from time to time, gloves and masks are necessary because, as humans, we know there are communicable diseases that we don’t want to receive or pass along to a patient.  Because of the close, intimate relationship between a nurse and a patient, diseases can be communicable. The same is true with God.

If you have a close, intimate communicable relationship with God—you will catch His communicable attributes of which joy is one.  Often times when we think of God, we can understand a Holy God or a Righteous God, but a joyful God?  Yes absolutely.  In the Bible, if you go back to Proverbs 8, God says this about Himself:  I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence, rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind.  Now the Hebrew word that we translate into the English as “delight” is a word that actually means to frolic – to jump up and down and to clap hands.  

Here you have the God of the Bible referring to Himself in the first person and describing how He felt about His creation.  It wasn’t some somber, stoic, responsive look at what had been created. Proverbs says, He frolicked.  From the old Prophet Zephaniah we have the same emphasis:  The Lord takes delight in you and he will rejoice in you w/singing. (Zeph. 3:17).God frolicking?  That doesn’t seem very dignified.  But it is because it is a holy and majestic joy.  That same joy, that communicable attribute, is contagious to anyone who desires a close, intimate relationship with God.  

Nobody who really knows God is without this kind of joy.  If you receive what the Scripture says about God, then you have this joy inside of you—right now!  This joy is essential, because it is who God is. This is why we describe the Gospel as the message that brings good tidings of great joy!  Receive that message of grace, and know true joy!  It is there for the taking. Come and get it!