Transformed – teen devotion – December 15, 2024

A repentant person is a joyful person, and a joyful person will always have fruits of repentance present in their life.

Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.

Luke 3:8a

A Real Christmas Results in Great Joy

How would you define a “joyful” person?

Is it someone who always has a smile on their face? Is it someone who is friendly to everyone they meet? Is it someone who shares a lot of joyful quotes on Instagram?

Smiles can mask a world of hurt on the inside. Friendliness isn’t always genuine. The person sharing those joyful quotes might be in their room alone feeling isolated.

So what is a joyful person?

It’s important to differentiate between happiness and joy. Happiness is an emotion. It comes from your circumstances. Joyfulness is a condition. It comes from Christ assuring you of his abiding love and your glorious future. Therefore, joyfulness is enduring.

Consider this: a joyful person is a repentant person.

At first read, these two things might seem to contradict each other. Isn’t repentance all about feeling sad? This is true in a way. Repentance is feeling sad over one’s sin. However, it also involves trusting in Jesus’ forgiveness.

The person who is repentant knows their enduring condition of being forgiven through Jesus’ death on the cross. They know that heaven is their inheritance no matter how bad things get here on earth. That leads to joyfulness.

That joyfulness will inevitably lead to fruit. The person who is secure in their forgiveness in Christ wants to live a life giving back to him. They want to live a life full of love for God and others. They want to share the joy they know with others.

The historic Christian Church gave Latin titles to each Sunday. The title for the third Sunday of Advent was “Gaudete” which means “to rejoice.” It was a reminder of how closely joyfulness and repentance are to one another.

Let the joy Christ has worked in you by making you his child lead you to produce fruit in your life as you live for Jesus and your neighbor.

Prayer:
Lord Jesus, make me a joyful person through your Spirit and produce fruits of repentance in me. Amen.