I want to talk to you about something that I have been learning for the past few years and am still in the process of learning.
Do you all remember the message given last month where Gabi showed a picture of coffee? This really spoke to me. I love coffee! Remember she talked about how coffee is ground, then boiled and when it is finished, it produces this great aroma. After she showed the coffee, she asked if when we go through similar circumstances, do we produce a pleasant flavor and aroma.
Then Gabi went on to say we should be reflecting joy, strength, reflecting Jesus Himself during these difficult times. I thought about this long and hard. I might be reflecting strength and maybe some other attributes of Jesus, but JOY? No way!
I looked up joy. This is what I found; joy is when you know inside that God is God, no matter what and He is working for good in your life. It is not based on outward circumstances, but the internal/eternal well being of our soul.
I remembered a non-Christian asked me once, “why doesn’t a Christian’s face reflect the joy that is suppose to be inside?” I wondered if Jesus’ face reflected joy.
God has been speaking to me, these past few years, this; the most furious battle we Christians will ever have to fight is the fight of faith. To believe that the Bible is true, when everything around us screams it is not. And I thought I was doing this, but I realized I was doing it with a sour face and not always the best of attitude.
I believe Joy is my birthright. It is the birthright of every Christian, even in the time of suffering. I think this is Jesus’ meaning in the parable of the wedding feast; invitations were sent out, people came, but some of them were walking around with glum faces. Jesus said to His disciples, “go up to them and ask how they got in here, dressed like that”.
It is the same way with us. We are his bride, He is our groom; are we secure in this relationship with Him? If so, how can we say we belong to the God of the universe and not have that joy in our hearts and it reflect in our face?
Especially in suffering, we have to believe in this birthright. We have to fight the fight of faith during this time. We have an enemy of our soul in this battle, and he does not want us to have well-being. Mark 3:27, says when you have that gift of God in your house, someone is going to want to control your house. It is either the strong man or a stronger man. The strong man is the evil one. The first thing he wants to do is rob you of your joy. Do you know why? First of all, it is a great witness, and second he doesn’t want you to have it. He doesn’t want you to enjoy your life. When a robber breaks into your house, do you think the first thing he looks for is a glass? Why? It has no value. He looks for the most expensive item you have. He goes through your house looking for your most special, expensive stuff. He wants to rob you first and primarily of your joy. He wants to take it away from you.
God has given us a precious possession and it is not easy to hear, (well it wasn’t for me), but to be alive is to fight, there is a real enemy, in a real fallen world and we have to fight.
And it is in this fight that I believe God gives us joy. Isn’t that strange? I would suggest to you that suffering is the seedbed of joy.
Let’s look at a few things (these are keys I believe is important for us to understand in order to fight this fight of faith, to experience our birthright, joy in the process, even in difficult times):
First we have to understand the difference between the root and the fruit. There is a huge difference in our spiritual life. The root of our lives in Christ is our faith. We believe that Jesus came, that Jesus died, that He was raised from the dead, our sins were forgiven, that he ascended into heaven, he will come back again and this world will be made right. This is the essence of our faith. We cling to it, we believe it, the Bible is filled with 7000 promises. We claim each one of them, we believe they are true.
Now the root is established in Him and when the root is nurtured in Him what happens naturally? If the root is right, the fruit comes forth. Does this make sense? This is important and the reason is because if you want joy, it comes from the constant choice to believe (that is what faith is, right?) and as we choose to believe and keep that root strong in Him. What bursts forth naturally, not by force or works are the fruit of the Holy Spirit; Gal. 5 love, joy and it list several more. The second one listed is joy; this internal/external sense well being in our lives.
Is God making you wait for some things? I have been and it has been driving me crazy, this waiting room. My son, JohnLuke has been studying words that mean the same, but are spelled differently. Here are 2 words; wait and weight. As we go to that weight room to lift weights we make your body physically stronger. God puts us into His waiting (w-a-I-t-I-n-g) room from time to time to build up our spiritual muscles. As we wait for the promises we believe by faith will occur, even though we can’t see them, that is when God gives us joy through faith. If joy is not there, you don’t try to figure our why the fruit is not there. Just like a plant, you go to the root to see what is wrong with the root nesses. If the light is not coming on in your room, you don’t crush the lightbulb, you jiggle the connection with the electricity. If the fruit of joy is not in our life, I would suggest that probably the root of faith in Christ is not rightly secure and connected.
The second key to understand in order to fight this fight of faith with joy is; we become what we think. You become what you put into your mind and it is your choice. Romans 12: 2 says; “Do not change yourself to be like people of this world, but be changed within by a new way of thinking. Then you will be able to decide what God wants for you; you will know what is good and pleasant to Him and what is perfect.” Joy is a spiritual discipline of the mind. Let’s go back to the weight room again; if you want to be stronger physically you don’t just wait for it to happen. Any physical trainer would say; if you want to be physically stronger, go to the weight room, lift weights. The resistance of those weights will build your physical muscles. The key to joy is similar. Everyday you must choose in your mind what you believe about God and life. As circumstances are horrible, you can choose to believe God is faithless, God is not in control and God does not care. Or you can choose to believe that God is good, in control, God is love, God is faithful and that He is working all together for your good. The choice is what you choose to believe in your mind.
The last key is very similar to the first, but I think a little different and very important to look at. When the Israelites were getting ready to enter the promise land, they had waited for 40 years. Here is what God asked their leader, Moses, to have them do. On 2 mountains, with a valley in the middle, God had half the Israelites to get on one mountain and half to get on the other mountain. In Deut. 28 it says that one side was to yelled forth to the other side, as it reverberated through the valley; “If you want God’s blessings, God’s goodness, His life, choose to obey what God tells you to do.”
After they completed this the other side was to yell forth (Deut. 29), the curses. All kind of things like sterility, no rain etc.
You might say, well that is Old Testament. Look at what Jesus said in Matt. 7: 13 & 14 “Enter through the narrow gate. The gate is wide and the road is wide that leads to hell, and many people enter through that gate. But the gate is small and the road is narrow that leads to true life. Only a few people find that road” (at end of verse says finds it, but could use choose).
Jesus was saying basically there are 2 mountaintops; one is a mountaintop of blessings and one of cursing. 2 roads in life; one is broad, no discipline, people do whatever they want to do, whenever they want do it. People don’t want to control their passions, they live as a victim in a society expecting the society to take care of them. This is a broad highway, a lot of people are on it and it is a highway that leads to hell. It is a highway of destruction, of curses. But there is another road, and you can choose to take this one, but beware, it is a narrow road, it is a discipline road, you must give your passions to me. If you walk down this road, though few walk it, it is a road that leads to life, to blessing, to prosperity. I can’t find anything else like this, another road or another mountain. The Bible only describes 2 roads, 2 mountains, and it says clearly, it is our choice to choose which one we walk on. God is a gentleman, He will never force us to do something we don’t want to do.
I used to think obeying the Lord was just the hardest thing to do. But you know what I have learned? When I obey God, I am flowing with the way God intended life to operate; you don’t put diesel fuel in a car that doesn’t want diesel fuel, do you? You operate by the operator manual when you buy something, don’t you, (well some of you do!). The owner, the builder, the mechanic says this is the way you are suppose to do it and when you don’t do it the right way, it breaks down. In Deut. 30 after 28 & 29 where they are yelling the blessings and curses, Moses begs the people to choose life, because he knew when you do that joy would be the result.
Well these are the 3 keys Father showed me. Everytime I would try to find something else, He would lead me back to some verse like “don’t give up, keep your eyes on the what you cannot see, not on what you can see”. JohnLuke has a memory verse every week, and even his verses would speak to me in some way about this. I remember one week I was especially struggling and his verse was from Philippians 4, “I have learned to be satisfied with the things I have and with everything that happens. I know how to live when I am poor, and I know how to live when I have plenty. I have learned the secret of being happy at any time in everything that happens, when I have enough to eat and when I go hungry, when I have more than I need and when I do not have enough. I can do all things through Christ, because He gives me strength.” I couldn’t get away from it. His verse this week is 1 John 5: 3-4 : This is the love we have for God, that we obey His commandments and His commandments are not burdensome. Whoever is born of God has overcome the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith.
I believe God wants us to walk in this joy, to fight this fight. It is important to Him. For those of you that have children, just think about how much it hurts you to see your children down and depressed. I know when Georgina first came to live with us and she would hang her head down and look sad. I wanted to know what was wrong, how could I help. Well if I as a parent feel this way, how do you think our Father feels when we walk around depressed, sad and not trusting Him? It is in our commitment, our willingness to fight, God sees how serious we are about being a follower of Him.
How many of you are breathing right now? Ok about 40%. Seriously are you breathing? Everybody! Let me tell you, you have won! Are you aware of that? Whatever problem you have been going through and you are sitting here today, still breathing, you won! My grandpa’s favorite verse was; “it came to pass.” You made it! I have made it.
Are you with me? It may not look like it, but we are victorious. Put your faith in God. If we take the attitude of victim, we will be crushed. If we play the blame game, that it is every body’s else fault, we will be paralyzed before the problem and then become bitter. It will poison our soul. But the victor looks the problem squarely in the eye and moves forward.
My pattern and what Father has been showing me is I tend to walk in defeat when things happen - bad things, things I don’t understand. I always blame myself. Now it is good to always allow Father to search our hearts and show us what He needs to change, but I am talking about this constantly blaming myself, putting myself down, beating myself up when things happen. After a while, all I have on my mind is me and how terrible I am, how terrible everything is and before I know it, I just can’t go on. I give up, if not in a physical sense, in my mind, emotions, my will. I don’t choose life. I am choosing the curse of defeat.
I have asked God to break the power of this tendency in my life. And what I mean by tendency, is it is what I automatically choose to do when these things come up. But I believe God can break the power of this thing and I will not automatically choose this. I have asked Him to empower me to choose Truth, that sometime these bad things happen; inconvient, uncomfortable, frustrating (no water, no electricity, car breaking down, husband falling off ladder) and I could go on and on.
Now I know there are some things like the loss of loved one, death, sickness, etc. that are tougher to deal with and it may take time. Do you know what usually robs my joy the most? The stuff that usually can keep me with a sour face and bad attitude, are the little frustrating, inconvient, uncomfortable things. I have asked God to empower me to choose thankfulness, to continue to move forward, to continue seeing myself as His child that He loves, to continue to remember who I am and who He is, to keep my eyes on the big picture, not to let the little things rob me of my birthright joy.
These things can rob us guys, keep us from being all that God created us to be, keep us from walking in our destiny, our purpose.
Let’s fight this fight of faith. Let’s play to win! Remember though, it is a choice. Victim or victor! It will determine your joy today and forever.
Pray for us all that we will choose life, remind us in times of problems, frustrations to refuse to let our joy, our birthright be robbed. Empower us, strengthen us. Show anyone here if there is a pattern they have, that is robbing them of all you have for them.
by Teresa Drew
