October 23, 2009

• Letter 10 on assurance and fighting for joy (joy is for ALL!)

  
  Continuing on in my series of letters about assurance and joy. I know this is quite long but I would encourage you to read it all. Joy is not an option for the believer. It is God's gift available to all who are in Christ. The health and life of the Church depends on our knowing Him and His joy. I am praying none of us would limit the work of God in our lives or in our churches but we would open ourselves up to His fullness! ~Karen

  
  

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  My dear friend delighted by His joy,

  I know you have had a taste of His living water now, no, not only His living water but the new wine, and you've drunk deeply. We've both begun to become Christ-intoxicated. How can we not? How can we not want more and more of Him? O, yes, He fills us until we are full and overflowing, and even yet, though we are wholly satisfied in Him, we know there is more to be had. So we go back and seek Him once more and drink again.

  Pleasures forevermore!

  Pleasures! Doesn't our God want us to enjoy Him? To rejoice and be glad in Him. To exult in Him. Should we are not be seeking to know God and receive all His fullness, all He has for us. Should we not expect joy? Has He not promised us pleasures forevermore? Are we not told to delight in the Lord? Does not Paul tell us to rejoice in the Lord always? Do we not know the language of the Psalmists and Solomon regarding the love relationship we are to have with the Lord? Is our God a taskmaster like Pharaoh? No, He is a God who loved us first and wants to give us all things. He has already shown us His great love for us in giving us His Son. Is it not His desire to have a love relationship with us? Are we not to love Him with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind and all our strength? All! Has He not given us the spirit of adoption so we might call Him, "Abba, Father"? Does He not want to give us good gifts? Will He withhold anything good from us? Has He ever been stingy to us? No, no. He pours out more and more to His children because He loves us and we deserve absolutely none of it!

  Forevermore! Not fleeting pleasures, but eternal pleasures. Not like the world gives. In my fourth letter, I reminded you any earthly pleasures are temporary. Only our relationship with the living God and His riches are will what truly satisfy us. For in Him alone are true and lasting pleasures for they flow from the Rock of our salvation. Of course, you know that means – we've not even really drunk a drop of all the pleasures He has for us! O, my friend, does it not make you giddy thinking of this? We will drink of Him for all eternity, will we not? Forevermore! I cannot imagine it, can you?  He is so glorious to me today in my mortal body, what then when we put off the mortal for immortality? O, to be filled with all His fullness every moment. Glory forever. Joy unceasing. No wonder why there is talk of no more tears or sorrow in heaven. How can there be? We will be in the presence of perfect joy and have Him dwelling in us for all eternity!

  I will confess to you a couple years ago I would have said this type of joy was not for everyone. I would have said much of the joy I read about in the Bible was beyond the realm of possibility for the average Christian. I would also have argued that I'm not joyful and God can only do so much with someone like me. I read about joy and though I did think it possible for certain people, it certainly was not for me! As I've said before, by nature I do not tend to be joyful. Yet God's joy goes beyond our temperament, does it not? Yes, He does not undo our temperaments when we are saved (Lloyd-Jones has some good writings on that, esp. in his book "Spiritual Depression"); we can see that in the various characters and personalities of the Bible and Church history, e.g.- Jeremiah, David Brainerd, William Cowper. Yet there is a joy available to all of us since we are children of God. And we can never let our own limited experiences with God limit the possibilities of what He might do! That is very dangerous. When we do that we are putting ourselves over God and over the Scripture. We don't judge Scripture based on our experiences. We judge our experiences based on the Scripture. Just because we've not experienced something doesn't mean it isn't possible. His ways and His thoughts are higher and greater than ours! Who are we that we should be His counselor?

  (O, how short-sighted I was and how limiting I was of Him! God forgive me for being a brute beast! I know He has! How longsuffering He is with me! Thank God He is sovereign and good to us even when we doubt Him! And how He works in us beyond what we can imagine or think, or sometimes even what we want to begin to imagine or think!)

  How dangerous such thoughts are! When we don't believe God wishes to give us His fullness of joy, are we not limiting Him? Remember Psalm 78 or when our Lord was at Nazareth and we read how He could not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief. Yes, I know He is sovereign. He could have worked in that place, yes, but yet we see He chose not to. That's sobering to me...

  We must always go back to Jesus' words. Is there a limit on His words to us, is there a restriction on His promises to us about joy? Is it not His desire we have His joy and be filled with His joy and His joy might remain? Is it not a lie of the devil to say God's deep, abiding and full joy is not available for all believers? (Yes, I know His joy is tied to our obedience, I've already spoken of our need to confess sin so we might know His joy. We also see that there is a definite correlation between our obedience and the manifestation of His Spirit, e.g. - John 14:15-17, 21; 15:10-11).  But I would challenge anyone who doubts God's promise of fullness of joy to open their Bibles and look there and see if there is any asterisk anywhere in their Bibles next to His promises of joy for the believer. Is it not God's desire for all His children to have joy unspeakable and full of glory?

  Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus,
  and to take him at his word;
  just to rest upon his promise,
  and to know, "Thus saith the Lord."

  Will we not take Him at His word? It saddens me how so many of our dear brothers and sisters who have been washed in the fountain of Jesus' blood limit the workings of His blessed Holy Spirit. We are all prone to it, are we not? Yet who are we to say how God might choose to move? Can we limit the love of God or the joy or the glory of God coming into our souls? Can we say we know exactly how God might choose to manifest Himself? Can we predict how the Spirit might fall fresh on us? God forgive us when we try to put Him into a box! I know I still do so. God forgive me and guard me from limiting Him! The bottom line is this: Does God not want us to know Him? Does God not want us to know His joy? O, let us pray that the Church would not be afraid of God and the work He desires to do in us, but let us test and try all things and then embrace Him and His Spirit and all He has for us! May He return again and baptize us afresh and anew! If we do not embrace God's Spirit, can we say we are embracing Him?

  Oh, yes, there's a body of knowledge, there's doctrine, I'm not throwing out doctrine. Not at all! You know I am big into doctrine, but any doctrine that doesn't lead to a vibrant joy-filled relationship with God, is at best incomplete doctrine and may indeed be false doctrine. (I've written a bit more about that here and here - see point # 2.)  As you recently mentioned to me, we may as well be deists if we don't believe we can know God's fullness of joy and experience His pleasures forevermore. Yet in how many places has the life of God in the soul turned into such a distant deism? Don't we profess that we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life? Did He not come down to breath life into us and come to dwell in us? Do we not believe that we were born again by the Spirit? Born again for what? To truly live! To live with Him forever! To live by Him! To know Him, not just know about Him! O, how we must recover those doctrines in our churches once again. We are in need of a new reformation, are we not? I fear (no, I know it) we have gone so far astray. You know how I am burdened over false gospels, but is this yet another false gospel? To have made Christianity into a belief system rather than a relationship with the living God, a God who desires to communicate with us and commune with us. Have we made Christianity all about head-knowledge and excluded the heart? Are we rich in doctrine and yet paupers in experience? Are we not to believe in Him in our hearts? Are we not told the greatest commandment is to love Him with all our heart, all our soul, all our strength and all our mind?

  Was this not Jesus' message to the Church at Laodicea (my rephrasing/expansion):

  "I'm knocking. I'm living and breathing. I'm here. Do you not hear Me? I'm not just a creed or a confession! O, my children, you are missing out on so much!  My bride, I love you. Will you love Me as I have loved you? I want to sup with you and eat with you! I desire it! I desire you! I died for you so I might live in you and we might enjoy sweet communion moment by moment. I have pleasures forevermore I want to give you, but you are settling to keep Me constrained to the written page rather than allowing Me to come in and write My word on your heart! You take communion dutifully but you do not commune with Me! O, how I long for you, my Love! Will you return to Me? You have become rich in your knowledge but you truly do not know Me. You confess me with your lips, but have you believed in your heart? Your confess you are to glorify Me and enjoy Me forever, but I don't see you really enjoying Me! When was the last time you enjoyed Me, really enjoyed Me, and sat at My feet and worshiped Me exuberantly? O, come, My bride and enjoy Me. Enter into the fullness of My joy today. Pleasures forevermore. They are here for you. I am here for You. I am waiting for you. Open the door so you might truly know Me, so you can know My fullness, My joy, My peace, My life! Let me enrapture you and love you in a way you cannot imagine. This is My greatest desire. I am your Husband. Let me love you. I am the Lover of your soul. Come, my bride!"

  You know I am cautious and skeptical of experience apart from doctrine, and we should always be. When I speak of experience with God, I'm not talking of a rah-rah emotional experience like we get at a pep-rally (or even some Christian concerts or worship services, I am sad to say). I'm talking about a deep joy rooted in God Himself and our relationship with Him which we must always examine in light of the Scripture. Yet are we not to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength? It seems that many become suspect of the Holy Spirit and only go so far to say we ought to enjoy Him with our minds and they stop there. Can we not all know the experience of the Psalmists? Better is one day in His courts, better is one day in His house than thousands elsewhere! You look all through the Psalms. These men had this intimate relationship with God and the deep joy of the Lord even in difficulty and trial. Did they not know this joy unspeakable? Can we not also? Is not our God the same God? And how much more so since we are past the cross, past the resurrection and past Pentecost! Has He not promised to send His Spirit to dwell in us? Should we not enjoy Him with our whole being? With every ounce of us? Should we not dance before the Lord with all our might? Should we not shout joyfully before Him and make a loud noise? Or should we begin to throw out many of the Psalms because they are bit too joyful (not to mentioned the Song of Solomon!) – in the same way many have thrown out teachings about the gifts and the baptism of the Holy Spirit? Look at the passion and love throughout the Psalms, the exuberant and overflowing praise. Of course, it's all rooted in doctrine about God. The Psalms are deep in doctrine. And we know how the apostle Paul was big into doctrine: yet right smack dab in the doctrinal book of Romans, what do we find in Romans 8? Whoa! Yes, you know. The Holy Spirit! Our doctrine must lead us to living experience of the living God, otherwise it is all a sham. Paul speaks of the Holy Spirit as a person...um, yes, that's because He is a person! As I've said before, we can't have only the Father and the Son without the Spirit, the Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, He proceeds from both. Our whole relationship and life with God hinges on the work of the Holy Spirit in us. I would go so far as to say that if we are not seeking joy in the Lord, expecting such a rich experience of knowing Him, then I would say our teaching is not truly orthodox. Many churches and denominations have been bound up in fear over the work of the Holy Spirit. What are we doing? We want everything done decently and in order, we micromanage things, we have put all our ducks in a row, we don't want any waves, and of course, when we do that, we shut out the Holy Spirit. And, of course, if we are not welcoming the Spirit, we are not welcoming God Himself! We are grieving and quenching and limiting Him. Is it any wonder the Church is in the state she is today? Orthodoxy apart from a living, fiery orthodoxy is not truly orthodox. Christ came that we might know God. We are talking about a relationship with the living God. God has done all so we might have a relationship with Him. He sent His Son to die for us not only so our sins might be forgiven, but so we might have fellowship with Him, to enter into His presence and be seated in heavenly places with Him. Are we not all born again into His family, saved by grace through faith? Do we not all have the same Holy Spirit indwelling us? Does He not want us all to know Him and His fullness of joy? Again, it's not about our working up joy, it's about our putting ourselves in a place to receive what He desires to give us. Yes, I know He is sovereign about it, yet does He not want to give all of us fullness of joy? Would that the Church saw this as a real possibility! You know how Martyn Lloyd-Jones spoke of the glorious possibilities available to us. (I thank God for how God has used him to open my eyes to how much God has made available to us.) Has the father of lies come in to blind God's people to those glorious possibilities, to the abundant life God has for us and allowed us to settle for a dry, dull orthodoxy in place of a passionate joy-filled fellowship with the living God? How have we been guilty of making God into our own image: are we settling for fast food rather than a feast?

  I've been reflecting on the parable of the prodigal son. The two sons were both sons indeed. The younger son was prodigal for a time, squandered all he had, then came to his senses and realized he would be far better off as a servant in his father's house. He knew he deserved nothing and begins to return home. You know the wonderful story. Then his father sees him afar off, has compassion on him, runs to him, welcomes him, embraces him, gives him the robe, the shoes and the ring and has a wonderful feast prepared for him. He treats him as a son even though he deserved none of it.

  But now here's who we really need to look at in the story: the older son. What's he been doing during this time? Has he not stayed home and been faithful, having fulfilled all his duties and responsibilities? Yes He has. But has he ever ENJOYED his relationship with his father? No, he hasn't.

  Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends...But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him! And he said to him, Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.
  

  
  Was not the older son also prodigal? Are we like the older son? Oh, no, but we once were! God forbid a day comes that we do not enjoy Him and rejoice in Him! Can we say we are enjoying our Father as He desires when we are not opening ourselves up to all those glorious possibilities He has for us? Is not all His ours? Is it not His desire that our joy be full and complete? If we insist this joy is only for a few and not for us, are we not acting like the older son? Is it not God's desire we enter into the joy of the Lord today, here and now?

  Aren't many of our friends in the Church living like the older son? There's not a fullness of the joy of the Lord. There's a lack of vibrancy. The older son was a son, yes, a dutiful son, he's fulfilled the obligation, but he doesn't really enjoy being in his father's house, he's not enjoying his father. He's not experienced fullness of joy or begun to drink in of those pleasures forevermore God makes available to His children. Are we not to enjoy God? Yet how many of our brothers and sisters are like the older son. How many continue to be bound up and preoccupied with rules, regulations and laws and with dotting all their i's and crossing their t's, loving their rules and their theology rather than than loving the Lord God Himself? Oh, I once was there. I know that life...actually it's not really life for there's no real joy there at all!

  So many of our brothers and sisters work and work and look forward to that Day He will tell them, "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of the Lord." They're looking forward to that joy, but oh, my friend, does our Lord not want us, all of us, to enter into His joy today, in the here and now? Does He want us to serve Him gritting our teeth, wincing and barely getting by, like the older son. Some look at the apostle Paul and they think his life and his joy was exceptional. Well, who was Silas? Weren't they both praising the Lord in prison? Or Stephen? Or how about Peter who spoke of joy unspeakable and full of glory? Or the many martyrs who went out in a literal blaze of glory, rejoicing in the Lord while being burned at the stake for their faith? You look at various accounts of people throughout history. Ordinary people. That's why I tell people to read Christian biography. There's nothing special about these people. Is God today not the same God? God is not a respecter of persons. He is not into clubs or cliques. Does not the God who gave us His Son not freely wish to give us all things? Why would He withhold any of Himself or His joy from us? Having done all to save us to the uttermost, does He not want us to enjoy Him to the uttermost?

  You know I love to quote Philippians 2:12-13: how we are to work out our salvation as He works it in us. But look at verse 14: do all things w/out grumbling or disputing. Ok, what does it mean to do all things w/out grumbling and questioning or disputing: does that not mean to that we are to do all things with JOY? Did not the early church know this joy? Doesn't God want us all to know such fullness of joy today?

  You know those many verses in the OT that speak of curses on Israel for disobedience, well, notice how the Lord starts off one of those curses:

  Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things...

  Yes, God is concerned about our obedience to Him, our service to Him, but is He not also concerned about our joy? Has our Lord not given us an abundance of all things, the greatest of which is Himself and His salvation to us? That is why we need to go back to those first things of our relationship to Him and His love and grace and mercy poured out for us at Calvary as I wrote about previously here. O, for eyes to see that all we have, all we are, it is all a gift of grace from the Father's sovereign hand. We deserve nothing and yet He gives us everything!

  Does not Paul tell us to rejoice in the Lord always? Do we toss out that commandment and say that doesn't apply to us? Of course not! We can only rejoice in the Lord as we know Him and experience more and more of Him and His joy unspeakable, a joy that goes beyond the pages of Scripture to a living experience of God written on our heart.

  The apostle Paul was a person like us. We have the same God. We're all in God's family, saved by grace through faith. We all have the same Holy Spirit indwelling us. Why would we not believe we could have the same joy Paul had? Follow me here now. Paul knows that all he had was given to him. He constantly boasts of God's grace so He might give all the glory to God. Paul continued to tell how God's grace overflowed to Him while he was the chief of sinners, how he was made a minister according God's grace (I Tim. 1:12-14, Eph. 3:5-6), how he worked but it was God's grace working in him (I Cor. 15:10)...and then this is what I really like in Ephesians 3:6: Paul still sees himself as the least of the saints! He still saw him as the least...He says there: I AM the very least of all the saints...Present tense. Paul knows all He has and is is of and by the grace of God, all to the glory of God. Is this not where Paul's  joy came from as well? Did he not receive the joy he had by grace of God! Paul reminds us that we have nothing but what we have received (I Cor. 4:7).

  Did not Paul insist all he had was of grace? Yes. So then, regarding the fullness of joy Paul had, would he have ever said he earned it? No. Would he have said he deserved it? No. Would he have said that there was anything special in him for God to give him such great joy? No. All He had was all of God's grace. And like our salvation, joy is a gift God wants to give each of His children. It is part of our birthright in Christ, it's is Jesus' desire. We need to stop thinking there are two classes of Christians. We are children of God by God's grace, therefore we are all entitled to receive the gift of His joy by His grace as well.

  It is my desire that each one who reads my words here would examine the Word of God for themselves and see that these promises are not limited to a select few or were for Bible times only. The joy of the Lord is available to all His children. Again, the objection many have is this: Well, that was or is only for certain people. Again, where do they find that in the Scripture? Where does God limit Himself on this promise?

  We can read the hymn writers. Here's Fanny Crosby:

  Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
  O what a foretaste of glory divine!
  Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
  born of his Spirit, washed in his blood.
  
  Refrain:
  
  This is my story, this is my song,
  praising my Savior all the day long;
  this is my story, this is my song,
  praising my Savior all the day long.
  
  Perfect submission, perfect delight,
  visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
  angels descending bring from above
  echoes of mercy, whispers of love.
  
  (Refrain)
  
  Perfect submission, all is at rest;
  I in my Savior am happy and blest,
  watching and waiting, looking above,
  filled with his goodness, lost in his love.
  
  (Refrain)
  

  I was discussing this hymn w/ someone recently. Rapture: intense pleasure, joy, ecstasy, bliss, elation, enchantment, delight. I asked, "How many Christians do we know would describe their relationship with God in those terms?" Not many, I fear. Can you imagine if our churches were filled with people who knew the love of God for them like that? Would we not be turning the world upside down? More than ever I am seeing we need to go back to our first Love, to know Him and the joy of the Lord. Will that not usher in the revival we so seek? Would we not say that such joy is the firstfruits of such a revival? Come, Lord Jesus!

  The Lord has been letting me taste more of His joy and yet I know there is so much more yet to drink!

  Let us enjoy Him today and forevermore!

  Karen

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