"These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full" (John 15:11).
One distinguishing mark of those first Christians was a supernatural radiance that shined out from within them. The sun had come up in their hearts and its warmth and light made unnecessary any secondary sources of assurance.
They had the inner witness. They knew with an immediate awareness that required no jockeying of evidence to give them a feeling of certainty. Great power and great grace marked their lives, enabling them to rejoice to suffer shame for the name of Jesus.
it is obvious that the average evangelical Christian today is without this radiance. The efforts of some of our teachers to cheer up our drooping spirits are futile because those same teachers reject the very phenomenon that would naturally produce joy, namely, the inner witness: "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself" (1 John 5:10).
Divine joy is the privilege of all consecrated believers. The world must see the light of heaven in our faces if it would believe in the reality of our religion.
~A. W. Tozer~
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