The joy of the Lord is our strenght.

The “joy of the Lord” is the fruit of the Holy Spirit, and is released as you step into God’s perfect will and His perfect will is for all mankind to come into a relationship with Him through His Son Jesus Christ.

The general idea exist that prayer is a relationship between God and man which is in a sense true. However once you realize that the joy of the Lord is based on the manifested relationship, then you realize that prayer in itself is not the relationship, but the means to the relationship with the one and only Living God and His Son Jesus Christ.

After the mentioned realization prayer becomes more of a conversation, it become a dialogue where the focus is more on knowing each other with the purpose of pleasing each other than self-realization within the relationship. In John 3:16 God said that He so loved the world that He send His Son so that who so ever belief in Him with not perish but have eternal life. Jesus define eternal life in John 17:3 as to know God and the one whom He send.

In 1 John 1:3 John explained that the disciples had fellowship with God and with His Son. The word fellowship is described as “shared, intimate, and active participation in the common life of God, the Father, and His Son, Jesus Christ”. This participation means that we participate in a common bond, which is the new covenant between God and man through the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ.

So prayer is not just to ask God, but to come into the relationship with God through the common bond of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross of Calvary. In the mentioned relationship we can open our heart before the one and only Creator of Heaven and earth, because we know Him based on the common bond, just as Paul wrote in Romans 8:31-32   “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”

Once we come into the relationship we know that nothing can separate us from God and His love, demonstrated through His Son Jesus who willingly gave Himself so that we could enter through faith.

The “joy of the Lord” as our strength is based in that we know that in Christ Jesus we have already entered into eternal life, for we know Him as our Lord and Savior.