The Gladness of Jesus Christ

I wrote yesterday that my biggest battle each day is to truly embrace the fact that conformity to Jesus -- not my own personal ease and comfort -- is really the good life.

One of the important biblical pieces of weaponry that I have to fight that battle is the truth of Jesus' indestructible joy. It's only because Jesus is infinitely happy that being conformed to Him is actually good news. If Jesus isn't joyful, being conformed to His image will be dreary.

To stoke my fires for this truth of Jesus' joy, this morning I re-read John Piper's chapter, The Indestructible Joy, from his book Seeing & Savoring Jesus Christ. It's a wonderful little book -- one of my favorites by Piper. You can read the whole book online here (the chapter I refer to begins on page 30).

I also noticed that the people at Desiring God made a 41-day reading plan to go through the book along with several passages of Scripture each day. It looks like a beneficial study, and you can check that out here.