The Fruit Joy - Fall Series pt. 3
In this episode, Diana discusses the fruit of joy as a characteristic of God's presence, rooted deeply in faith. Through relatable stories, scriptural references, and personal experiences, Diana encourages listeners to cultivate true joy that persists beyond circumstances. The episode highlights how joy, as a gift from God, strengthens and empowers us, offering listeners spiritual guidance on navigating life’s challenges with a heart aligned to God's purpose.
Diana’s Notes
Well, Welcome to Heartfelt Conversations with Diana! How are you doing? Can you believe Halloween is just around the corner and we are only weeks away from Thanksgiving! WOW! Seems like summer just arrived! LOL
We’ve been discussing in our new fall series, the different fruits that are the characteristics of God and these fruits are ours to help us in our faith walk when we receive Jesus as our Savior. And, they should be evidence to others that the Holy Spirit is present in our lives. These Characteristics of God, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control - that we first spoke of last week from Galatians chapter 5, should bear evidence to others that our hearts have been, are being renewed by our faith. That we no longer base our reactions toward other people, life’s circumstances, our own personalities or by the way of the world’s response, but rather; we are elevated - lifted up higher to a better way- we act out of God’s Spirit now in us strengthening us, equipping us to act out of love rather than react out of emotions. When we enter into this relationship with Jesus, we begin to transform into the whole, tempered, balanced, person He created us to be.
We can’t manufacture these characteristics on our own. We may organically have some of each of these wired within our DNA - but, when we are pressed, pressured, rushed, hurried, demands are put on us, we have to be around people we don’t like, when life isn’t going easy easy-peasy for us - how do we respond then?
It’s when we are being squeezed by outside pressures of life that can reveal what is truly within us. I know personally for myself, that it is really easy to display love, when I am around people I love, it is really easy for me to be patient with a 2 yr old- but watch out when I am cut off by some rude person going down the highway! LOL
Do you know what I mean?? We think we behave better than we really do sometimes.The fruit of the spirit is about learning how to develop a healthy attitude according to how we were created to be, and our attitude impacts our behavior. We tend to pour out what has been put in, so when there has been a lot of junk put into our thinking, or when we have lived in damaging situations, our feelings and emotions can dictate our responses. This summer we chatted about shifting our thinking off our emotions and onto knowing who we are in Christ because we are learning to fix our eyes on Jesus. Now we are discussing how to not respond to emotions and feelings by equipping and empowering ourselves with learning to nurture, grow, and develop God’s “attitudes” if you will, His behavior, His characteristics -into our daily walk,that will enable us to live a fuller, richer, more balanced - full life.
Last week we spoke on LOVE, the first characteristic of God’s Spirit listed in Galatians 5:
For the fruit of the Spirit is: Love, …
The next two characteristics of God’s Spirit listed are JOY and PEACE.
Joy is rooted in Who God is, so if we are distant from God, don’t believe in God, and have no relationship with Him, it is impossible to have JOY, real JOY. And we cannot fully know God and experience Him in an intimate and personal way without spending time with Him, getting to know Him through His WORD.
We need teaching from others and it helps us stretch and grow. But really, we need to be doing our own digging, and planting, and growing. What we hear in podcasts and messages and teachings and even songs, should confirm what we are learning. How else will you know if you are being deceived, if you do not know what God’s Word says yourself. And that is where God begins to reveal Himself to you in a unique way. Okay , another great topic of discussion… One day. HA
JOY that is of God is not fleeting or based upon our circumstances. Or our worldly possessions, the things we think we have to have to be happy - the people in our lives, our jobs, careers, these things can bring temporary happiness which may seem like JOY. But real JOY will bubble up from within even in the darkest situations, when it is the fruit of God’s Spirit within us.
Listen to this account of a couple of guys, Paul and Silas, who were arrested and charged with disturbing the peace. They weren’t disturbing the peace, a slave girl who had a spirit in her that allowed her to predict the future and the people who owned her made a lot of money off of her and during this time, she was following Paul and Silas around shouting, “ These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved. (Acts
Paul, after many days of her following them and shouting this everywhere they went, became annoyed with all the shouting so he healed her of the spirit, Paul called the spirit to come out of her in the name of Jesus. When this happened, the owners of this girl were no longer able profit off of her suffering.
Paul and Silas were stripped, beaten, and thrown into prison. And the prison they were in was filthy, nasty, I have heard that most likely they were sitting in feces.
Acts 16: 23-25 - After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. When he received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in stocks. About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.
Can you imagine being beaten, tortured, stripped, thrown into darkness with stocks on your feet and then you begin to sing???? Why would you want to sing? How could you even have the strength to? When God’s fruit, His characteristics are in us, when we are walking by faith and trusting God, His JOY will give us strength in the most dire circumstances - like Paul and Silas- Although I pray none of us experience that!
Proverbs 14:30 tells us that
A calm and peaceful and tranquil heart is LIFE and HEALTH to the body. But passions (or jealousy) and envy are like rottenness to the bones.
We will not know Joy if our hearts are stressed out and worrying about what everyone else has or is doing or tells us what we should be doing and we never stop to ask God His way for us. I lost my Joy because I took my off of trusting God to be good to me. I fell for the lie that God is against me.
I have a picture of me when I was in the second grade on my desk in my bedroom. In my own personal journey of healing and becoming a whole person, I realized I didn’t know joy anymore. I could laugh, and it appeared I was happy, but happy feelings come and go. Happiness can be dependent upon our environment, our feelings, other peoples attitudes; but JOY. Joy that comes from God’s Spirit is more than how we feel, His Joy, is our strength!
Nehemiah 8:10 - a book in the old testament says:
The Joy of the Lord is my strength
When we lose JOY, we lose hope and the bible says that without hope our hearts get sick and with a sick heart, there is no JOY. And there is no life.
Proverbs 13:12:
Hope deferred makes the heart sick but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life.
That is God’s Word, He knows how defeating it is when day after day our hopes and dreams fade and are unfilled. But sometimes we frustrate our own lives because we seek to do life our way rather than going to the ONE Who crafted the original Good and Perfect plan for our lives. He is not punishing us, but within every structure there are laws, such as the law of gravity We are physical beings but we are governed by spiritual laws and when we are off sync, when we are headed down a path of death rather than life, there is chaos and confusion and commotion within our inner person.
And when we are behaving counter to God’s character of goodness, of Love, Of Joy, Of Peace - then we are void of the strength that God’s joy brings to our inner soul, our core personhood, then our heart feels oppressed, depressed, overwhelmed. Life can begin to feel unbearable and the next thing you know, we’ve crawled back into bed, pulled the covers over our heads, and with what little mental capacity we have, we say” nope, not today! Today is too hard, too difficult, too much for me to handle so I am staying right here until the world is nicer or there aren't so many problems that I have to deal with. We begin to live life with a spirit of dread. We dread going to work, we dread going home after work, we dread our family, we dread our friends.
Dread breeds death.
I had been walking around for a long time under the spirit of dread and it overtook the spirit of God’s joy in me. So, I needed something to remind me of JOY. I prayed about it, talked about it with God, prayed that Jesus would lead me gently until I could stumble upon it again one day - but it really bothered me because I knew without God’s Strength - without His joy - I was a target for the enemy's tactics. I was easy prey, weak. Then one day, I was going through some pictures and I ran across a picture of me and I started crying. I was so moved with emotions and strong waves of memories from that age. And suddenly I found myself laughing and having good memories of me and the animals playing. Of running through our fields and exploring the creek that ran to the property. All of my childhood adventures came flooding in and I was filled with JOY! For years the memories I had were not memories at all. My “memories” were really other people's memories and I sorta could fill in the blanks, but not really. I had spent so many years trying to bury my past, my hurts, my wounds; hiding the bad, but in hiding all the bad - I also hid the good. Up until a few years ago, I had no real memories of my childhood or of my life in general. There were huge gaps of missing “data” in my brain. But that simple picture of a little girl way back in the second grade, opened the door for the Holy Spirit to remind me of God’s JOY.
When we are filled with JOY, it is an attitude of the heart. It is not a fleeting feeling, but it is our best position to face life from. Joy brings empowerment to overcome, to have the strength to endure hardships that come our way.
When we receive Jesus as our Savior, all of our problems don’t just disappear. They don’t magically vanish into the void. God’s Spirit, the Spirit Jesus says He leaves with us until He returns, helps us overcome the battles, helps us walk through the shadows of the night. Little by little, we will begin to see ourselves become bolder, stronger, more confident as our JOY in the LORD grows, as our Love walk deepens, and all of God’s Fruit - His character takes root and grows on the inside of us, we find that the waves that use to knock us down, the dark shadows in the night, the looming feelings of depression and despair begin to weaken and lose their grip on us. We find we are no longer staying in bed days and weeks on end because we have no hope. We no longer dread going to family reunions to be pointed at and sneered at by relatives because our life is the family gossip. Remember, the Holy Spirit is your HELPER, your Comforter, He is your personal LIFE COACH. The ONE Who knows our individual path that God has planned already for us. And as we lean on Him, including Him in our everyday lives, His Presence grows and our understanding of this power we have on the inside of us grows, and develops and blooms into healthy, beautiful fruit that nourishes and refreshes us, but also everyone around us. The Holy Spirit encourages us, convicts us, kicks us in the butt when we need it ( in a loving, gentle way) LOL
The Holy Spirit never puts guilt or shame or condemnation on us. He will convict us when we do things we know we shouldn’t for our own safety and good. But the Holy Spirit will NEVER make you feel bad, guilty, unworthy, less than. That is our enemy Satan, who likes to kick us down to keep us down, to keep us from reaching our full potential. He is ticked off! He is doomed for all eternity one day, and he hates you! You have to understand that any imitation form of power, of spiritual influence other than from God is of the enemy. And it is not to empower you, to help you in any way. Satan imitates God and tricks us to follow him. And we do it because in the beginning it seems harmless, it seems like it is good, maybe feels good, we think we have power to help others because we are tapping into a force, but it is the wrong force. If you struggle with depression, if you get bad headaches and are stressed out all of the time. If this negative aura seems to always follow you around. If you feel blah and disconnected and you have been seeking self improvement, empowerment from other sources, then you may have attached some other spirits into your life. I know I did.
In 2012 I prayed to have the chains of these spirits broken off of me. I couldn’t shake this feeling I always had and at one time when I was really angry with God, I started going down another path. I just wanted people to stop hurting me so I began learning meditations and chants to “pray” and “say” so that I put a ring of protection around me that they couldn’t penetrate through. At one point I was going to allow a spirit to speak through me and as I was laying on the floor while the others were calling up this spirit, I felt this unbearable darkness begin to creep in. I jumped up off the floor and ended the ceremony, but from that day forward, it seems like every decision I made was against myself without even realizing it. I was sabotaging my own life and I was unaware it was spiritual other than God not liking me.
And I know that is a lot for some people to hear. You may think I am full of donkey doo, but I am sharing my journey and what has been my experience so that maybe, just maybe, if there is one person who is walking out something similar and you are looking for a light, a way out of the darkness you feel, then my prayer is that this is an invitation to you to turn to Jesus and let God’s GOOD FRUIT begin to nourish your soul and bring light, His light into the dark corners, the places only He knows, And He wants to help you how to heal and be whole.
Our greatest weapon, our greatest power against evil is LOVE - GOOD overcomes evil. We need to learn to love what God loves. LOVE what is GOOD
The Word says: Love what is good, hate what is evil.
We spoke last week I believe on Romans 12:9
Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate was is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good.
God is Good. You Hold onto GOOD by Holding onto GOD and Jesus is the Teacher, The Shepherd, and our Messiah, He is the One Who leads us to the Father by helping reveal the mystery of God’s Word to us, when His spirit lives within us
Jesus went about doing GOOD. Acts 10:38 says
And you know that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. Then Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.
The important thing to see here, is the complete reliance of Jesus knew He needed here on earth was the power and the Spirit of His Father with Him. He did not say, I don’t need MY Father, I can handle this on my own. Jesus was not prideful or arrogant. He knew if He was to do the good His Father called Him to, then God needed to be pilot of the journey. The holy spirit helped Jesus navigate the trail.
Do you know what happens when we are not distracted with chaos, and drama, and stress, and worry, and fear - because we have learned to TRUST God and we have Learned to Love the way He does, our minds get off of us. We stop rolling over ourselves and all of our problems in our brain. That is what we do, something bugs us, offends us, ticks us off, hurts us and what do we do…??? We think about it CONSTANTLY!! Over and over and over. No wonder why we end up with sleeping problems. Our lives, our minds are so full of stress-filled thoughts that our bodies couldn’t relax if it wanted to! I used to toss and turn all the time. I was lucky if I slept 2 straight hours without waking up worried or stressed or angry or crying about something. But over 4 years of putting all this into practice, and now - my head hits the pillow and I am O - U- T - Out!.
Jesus went about doing good when He knew what His future would bring - death on the cross. But He was filled with God’s fruit and He knew how to fight against our flesh. Our earthly way of thinking. He knew God’s Kingdom, He knew how to overcome evil - by doing good
The Bible says in Doing Good - Helping Others produces JOY but we need to seek God and ask Him to show us what good work He has for us and follow. Then, when you trust Him and His directions and instructions for your journey. Dreams and desires and visions will be fulfilled that you never even knew were within you.
We will close with that verse as a word of encouragement here shortly. It's found in Ephesians 3:20- AMP Bible
When we receive Jesus, each one of the “fruits” is planted within us in a “seed” form. Meaning- we have it- it just needs to be developed, watered, nurtured, and little by little we should recognize these fruits beginning to bloom and pop out for others to enjoy and taste. It is not anything we can force to happen, we can’t fake it till we make it in this area! Ya know what I am saying???
when we sincerely seek God by following His Son Jesus, then love will just begin to organically grow in the good soil of our heart, and then joy, and peace, and patience all begin to bloom and grow as well. There is not an Easy Button we get to push. These are developed- which simply means, we can’t rush the process.
Ending:
This week - let’s put into practice joy -and - we’ve run out of time so we will pick up on peace next week.
But this week, Let’s make a determined purpose to laugh a lot, to seek out joy in our day and to bring some joy to someone else's day.
And meditate on Ephesians 3:30 in the MP Bible
Now to Him who is able to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly more than all that we dare ask or think [infinitely beyond our greatest prayers, hopes, or dreams], according to His power that is at work within us,
And I Send this verse out as a prayer of blessing over each and everyone of you!of
Remember! - Keep your Chin Up - Eyes fixed on Jesus!
A spirit-led life that lines our perspective up with what God’s word says, not the world. That is walking by faith. Trusting God
The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing -
Zephaniah 3:17 ESV
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. (Romans 15:13)
God Bless!!
Songs to inspire you
Fill My Cup
Goodness Of God (Lyrics) ~ Bethel Music
House Of The Lord
Scriptures from This Weeks Podcast
Acts 16:23-25 (NIV) After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.
Galatians 5:22-23 (NIV) But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things, there is no law.
Proverbs 14:30 (NIV) A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones.
Nehemiah 8:10 (NIV) The joy of the Lord is your strength.
Proverbs 13:12 (NIV) Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.
Ephesians 3:20 (AMP) Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us.
Romans 12:9 (NIV) Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.
Acts 10:38 (NIV) How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how He went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with Him.
Zephaniah 3:17 (ESV) The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.
Romans 15:13 (NIV) May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 8:11 (NIV) And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of His Spirit who lives in you.
Foundation Verse
Romans 8:11
The Spirit of God, Who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Chrisr Jesus from the dead, He will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living in you. “
Additional Resources
Prayer of Salvation
Jesus has given salvation, healing, and countless benefits to all who call upon His name. These benefits can be yours if you receive Him into your heart by saying this prayer:
Heavenly Father, I come to You admitting that I am a sinner. Right now, I choose to turn away from sin, and I ask You to cleanse me of all unrighteousness. I believe that Jesus rose again from the dead so that I may be justified and made righteous through faith in Him. I call upon the name of Jesus Christ to be the Savior and Lord of my life. Jesus, I choose to follow You, and I ask that You fill me with the power of the Holy Spirit. I declare right now that I am a born again, child of God. I am free from sin and full of the righteousness of God. I am saved in Jesus’ name. Amen.
This prayer and the comment above, were taken out of the book:
Secrets to Powerful Prayer - Discovering the Languages of the Heart
By Lynne Hammond and Patsy Cameneti
If you have just received Jesus as your Savior, please write Lynne Hammond Ministries at:
PO Box 29469
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55429-2946
Or, email one of the ministries listed on the Additional Resources Tab and let them know that you are a brand new christian and need some direction on the next steps for your new life in Christ.
Or email us here at Heartfelt Conversations with Diana and we will pass along your information for you.
Congratulations if you are a brand new Christian or if you have Returned Home! Welcome!!! Get in God’s Word and get it into you!
Diana’s Home Church:
Valley Family Church - Pastor’s Eric and Alexa Jones
www.valleyfamilychurch.org
Other recommended Jesus-centered churches who teach the True Word of God:
Elevation Church - Steven Furtick
https://elevationchurch.org/
Joseph Prince Ministries - Joseph Prince
https://www.josephprince.org/
Joyce Meyer Ministries
https://joycemeyer.org/