Steal my Joy? I don’t Think So!

Part 9

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” John 10:10

“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” Ephesians 4:30

If you have been following this series from the beginning you now know that joy is not a feeling. It is your strength (Post 1). It is contagious (Post 2). It came bundled with your salvation (Post 3). It is the foundation of a spiritual marriage (Post 4). It is connected to your prayer life (Post 5). It survives the wilderness (Post 6). It heals (Post 7). And it was the very thing that carried Jesus through the cross (Post 8). Joy is not a nice extra. It is ESSENTIAL to the Christian life. Which means the enemy has a very big problem with it. And he has a strategy to deal with it. That strategy is simple: if he cannot destroy you he will try to steal your joy. Because a Christian without joy is a Christian without power. And a Christian without power is no threat to him at all.

The Thief Has a Pattern

Let me tell you something about the enemy that I think every Christian needs to understand. He is not creative. He has ONE playbook and he has been running it since the garden of Eden. He steals. He kills. He destroys. That is it. Jesus said so Himself in John 10:10. The thief comes ONLY to steal and kill and destroy. Only. That is his entire range. He does not have a plan B. He does not innovate. He just keeps running the same plays over and over because they keep working. And the reason they keep working is that we keep falling for them.

When it comes to joy his approach is not complicated. He does not walk up to you and say “Hand over your joy.” That would be too obvious. Even the most spiritually drowsy Christian would recognise that. No – he is subtler than that. He erodes it. Slowly. Quietly. One offence at a time. One disappointment at a time. One unanswered prayer at a time. One harsh word, one betrayal, one sleepless night, one scrolling session through social media where everyone else’s life looks better than yours. He does not steal your joy in one dramatic moment. He bleeds it out like a slow puncture in a tyre. You do not even notice until you are driving on the rim and wondering why everything feels so hard.

Nehemiah Knew This Enemy

Go back to where this series started. Nehemiah 8 – the people weeping, the command to feast, the joy of the Lord is your strength. Beautiful moment. But the story does not end there. If you keep reading into chapters 4 and 6 you find that Nehemiah had enemies. Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem. And their strategy against the rebuilding of the wall was textbook enemy playbook. First they MOCKED. “What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore it for themselves?” (Nehemiah 4:2). Tobiah added “If a fox goes up on what they are building he will break down their stone wall” (4:3). Sound familiar? That is the voice that says “Who do you think you are? You think God is going to use YOU? Look at you. You are not qualified. You are not educated. You are not gifted enough. A fox could knock down what you are building.” That is the enemy’s first play. Mockery. Discouragement. Making you feel small.

When that did not work they tried INTIMIDATION. They threatened violence. They plotted attacks. They tried to get Nehemiah to stop building and come down for a “meeting” – which was really a trap (Nehemiah 6:2). Nehemiah’s response is one of my favourite lines in all of Scripture: “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?” (Nehemiah 6:3). Let me tell you – that needs to be on a t-shirt. I AM DOING A GREAT WORK AND I CANNOT COME DOWN. The enemy will always try to pull you off the wall. He will always try to get you into a meeting about your problems instead of staying focused on your purpose. And the answer is the same every time. I am busy. I am building. I am not coming down to your level to have a conversation about whether or not God is real or whether or not I am qualified or whether or not this is going to work. I KNOW it is going to work. God said so.

And when mockery and intimidation both failed they tried DECEPTION. They sent a false prophet to tell Nehemiah to hide in the temple because people were coming to kill him (Nehemiah 6:10–12). And Nehemiah saw right through it. “I perceived that God had not sent him” (6:12). The enemy will use religious-sounding voices to get you to retreat. People who sound spiritual but whose advice would take you off the wall and into hiding. Nehemiah’s discernment saved him. He kept building. The wall was finished. And the joy that had been declared at the beginning – the joy of the Lord is your strength – carried them all the way to completion.

The Religious Spirit Is the Sneakiest Thief

Here is one that might surprise you. One of the most effective joy-stealers in the Christian life is not the world. It is not the flesh. It is the religious spirit operating inside the church. And I say this carefully because I love the church. But we need to be honest about this.

A religious spirit turns everything into duty. Prayer becomes an obligation instead of a conversation. Worship becomes a performance instead of an overflow. Bible reading becomes a checklist item instead of an encounter with the living God. And joy – joy gets replaced with solemnity. With seriousness. With the quiet unspoken belief that the more miserable you are the more spiritual you must be. I have sat in churches where you would think that laughing was a sin. Where the atmosphere was so heavy you needed a crowbar to pry a smile out of anyone. That is not the Holy Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is LOVE, JOY, peace (Galatians 5:22). If joy is missing something else is operating. And it is not from God.

In my earlier post on Fear I wrote about how our greatest fear as Christians should be grieving the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 4:30 – “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” Do you know what grieves the Holy Spirit? Among other things – joylessness. When you have been given the joy of the Lord as your strength and you choose to walk around defeated and discouraged and miserable, that grieves the Spirit who lives in you. He deposited joy in you at salvation. It is a fruit of His presence. And when you let the enemy bleed it out of you without a fight you are letting the thief take what was never his to have.

How to Guard What Is Yours

So how do you protect your joy? Let me give you some practical things because theory without application is just noise.

First – KNOW YOUR ENEMY. Peter says “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). Notice he says LIKE a roaring lion. Not that he IS a lion. Jesus is the Lion of Judah. The enemy is an impersonator. He makes a lot of noise but he has already been defeated. Smith Wigglesworth looked at Satan at the foot of his bed and said “Oh it’s just you” and rolled over and went back to sleep. That is the posture of a man who knows his enemy’s limitations.

Second – GUARD YOUR GATES. What are you letting into your eyes and ears? What are you scrolling through at midnight? What conversations are you sitting in? What voices are you giving access to your spirit? Proverbs 4:23 says “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” Your heart is the source. If you let the enemy pollute the source the whole river goes bad. You would not drink water from a contaminated well. So why are you feeding your spirit from contaminated sources and wondering why your joy has dried up?

Third – WORSHIP AS WARFARE. This is the one most people miss. Worship is not just something you do on Sunday morning. It is a WEAPON. When Paul and Silas sang at midnight the prison shook. When Jehoshaphat sent the worshippers out AHEAD of the army the enemy defeated themselves (2 Chronicles 20:21–22). When you worship in the middle of the attack you are declaring to the enemy that he does not have authority over your joy. You are saying “You can take my comfort. You can take my circumstances. But you cannot have my worship and you CANNOT have my joy.” Try it. The next time the enemy comes for your joy – and he will – open your mouth and worship. Out loud. It does not have to be pretty. It just has to be real. And watch what shakes loose.

Fourth – STAY ON THE WALL. Nehemiah refused to come down. He refused to engage with distractions. He refused to attend the enemy’s meetings. And the wall got built. You have a wall to build too. A marriage. A family. A ministry. A calling. Whatever God has put in your hands – STAY ON IT. The enemy will send Sanballats and Tobiahs and false prophets and well-meaning friends who think you should take a break and religious voices that tell you to play it safe. Ignore them all. You are doing a great work and you cannot come down.

Joy Regenerates

Here is the beautiful thing about joy that the enemy does not want you to know. Joy is a FRUIT of the Spirit. And fruit regenerates. You can pick an apple off a tree and the tree grows another one. You can squeeze an orange dry and the tree produces more. The enemy can steal your joy today and the Holy Spirit can produce a fresh crop tomorrow. He cannot permanently take what the Spirit permanently supplies. He can harass you. He can discourage you. He can make you FEEL joyless. But he cannot reach inside your spirit where the Holy Spirit dwells and rip out what God has planted there. That is above his pay grade.

The joy of the Lord is your strength. Not was. Not will be. IS. Present tense. Ongoing. Renewable. The thief comes to steal and kill and destroy but Jesus came that you may have life and have it ABUNDANTLY. Abundantly means more than enough. It means overflowing. It means there is so much joy available to you that no matter how much the enemy steals there is always more where that came from.

So let him try. Let him send his mockery and his intimidation and his deception and his religious spirits and every other tool in his tired old playbook. You know who you are. You know whose you are. You know what you carry. And you are not coming down off that wall.

Steal my joy? I don’t think so.

A Prayer

Father, I am done letting the enemy take what is not his. My joy belongs to You and it was purchased at a price I could never repay. Forgive me for the times I handed it over without a fight. Today I take it back. I put on worship as my weapon. I guard my gates. I stay on the wall. And I declare to every Sanballat and Tobiah and lying voice that comes against me – I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Fill me fresh today with a joy that the enemy cannot touch because it comes from a source he cannot reach. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

— — —

“Great faith is the product of great fights. Great testimonies are the outcome of great tests.”

– Smith Wigglesworth

“The devil is not terrified of us. He is terrified of Him in us.”

– A.W. Tozer

Always i-CH