The Joy of the Lord: Rejoicing in Him…
Pastor Eric J. Hanson
Philippians 4:4 (Read it.)
I Thessalonians 5:16 (Read it.)
Last week, the Lord had me speak on the matter of comfort for believers in Jesus Christ in the midst of a time which is evil and has been growing more evil. During that message, entitled “Comfort in the Lord” He suddenly brought Philippians 4:4 to my mind, and I quoted it. Notice that it is a command. It is a verb, and it involves our will. Notice also, that there are no qualifications attached to this commend, such as “if people are treating you especially well today”.
Then I gave 3 examples of things Christians often think or say as reasons why they cannot rejoice. But, my husband is terrible to live with was one of these. I countered all 3 of these in this way: “The Bible does not say to rejoice in your circumstance. It says to Rejoice in the Lord. The Lord is always perfect and you belong to Him if you have received Jesus as your Savior, trusted Him for your eternal life, and followed Him as Lord, which He is.
Not only are we told to Rejoice in the Lord, (always, by the way), but God gives us the power to do this. Isaiah 61:3 tells us that the Lord supplies his people who are in mourning with a garment or a mantle of praise, to counter the spirit of heaviness and fainting (or quitting in discouragement).
This week I was in a group that was about to pray for someone, when I received a word from God that a literal living demonic spirit of heaviness, of mourning, of discouragement was attempting to hold this person down so that they could not get up and could not thrive. I could see inwardly. This spirit in the form of a large and fat vulture, perched on their shoulder and sinking its claws into that shoulder so that the full weight of this thing would be permanently pressing this person down into the ground.
Before going over to pray for this person, I explained what was happening and stated that the Lord has given us “the Garment of covering of praise, to counteract and disempower the spirit of heaviness”. The claws of the spirit of heaviness cannot penetrate the garment or mantle of praise to the Lord God almighty!
That is how Paul and Silas could rejoice and sing God’s praises at midnight right after having been unjustly thrown in jail and into chains. The horrible, ungodly, and hateful circumstances they were in, could not penetrate the garment of praise! Paul was doing the very thing he wrote that we are all to do. He was rejoicing in the Lord -always…
Friday, as I was asking God how to proceed with the need to impart a sense of this whole dynamic into our church family, God suddenly broke in on my thoughts, clear as a bell, and said: “Go up into your old office, and pull the books written by Tom Springer off from the shelf. One of those books is perfect for this need.”
I went up and got the books. Well, Tom has been living out these principles out for many years, and has come through the storms of life with tremendous joy and victory in spite of some very difficult things he has faced. It turns out that one of the books is called Rejoicing! A Way of Life.
We each need to come to the place where we understand that in the Lord, we are all called to a place of amazing joy and that it is a supernatural thing from God, not just a natural thing we do. If we set our heart to obey Him in this, He will come through with the oil of joy, which delivers us from the power of a mournful heart that cannot climb out of it. The first thing connected with the River of God in the Scriptures, is that it (the Holy Spirit) makes us glad. I will get into these things in some depth in weeks to come, because this whole matter is incredibly little understood in most church circles, even among pastors, evangelists, and Bible teachers. God is teaching me about these things now. He is answering prayers and doing great things.
Proverbs 17:22 A joyful (or merry) heart…
Psalm 46:4-5
Romans 14:17
Psalm 51:12
Nehimiah 8: 9-10/11-12
I Peter 1:8
