October 26, 2009

• Letter 15 on assurance and fighting for joy (Joy is a gift of God, more than a feeling)

  Continuing on with my series of letters on assurance and fighting for joy...

  My dear friend in Christ,

  As I said previously, I have struggled with being joyful. You know I have been hurting as of late. I know in my head I have every reason to be joyful in Christ, but joy is not something I cannot just work up. True joy transcends our emotions. True joy comes from believing. True joy is a gift of God through His Holy Spirit.

  Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost. Romans 15:13.

  I sat with a friend today and she reminded me of this verse. (Of course, I was already thinking on it a lot lately.) She first brought it to light for me almost a couple years ago...Would that the Lord would truly write this truth on my heart!

  As we believe in God through Jesus Christ, God Himself will fill us with joy. Joy is the outworking of our belief, a fruit of our belief. Joy is one of the fruit of the Spirit. (As I wrote you before we know that as we sin and disobey, we will quench His Spirit and hinder His joy flowing in our lives...)

  We are told to rejoice in the Lord. Rejoicing in the Lord and having joy in the Lord ought to be the natural outflow of the life of Christ which dwells in us. So the command to rejoice is not burdensome to us as believers. But I tell you that today it feels burdensome for me. But I know that God does not give us anything we cannot do in His strength. If He tells me to rejoice in Him, He will help me to rejoice in Him. I am taking Him at His word here. His desire is that my joy be full. Full. Not a thimble full, not even half a glass. Full. Full to overflowing. Does our God do anything halfway? No, He does not! And here in this verse from Romans 15, we are told He will fill us with all joy and peace in believing. All joy, all peace!

  I'm here in a pit right now. A pit partly of my own making because of my sin and my weakness. A pit partly brought on by the enemy. Plus I will also say it is a pit ordained by my Father, for of my Father loves me and disciplines me for my good (discipline is a whole other thing I would like to discuss at another time...since we know He loves us when He disciplines us (discipline is a sure evidence of His love for us!), does that not give us cause to rejoice in our discipline, even though the discipline itself is not joyous...).

  It's cloudy...

  

  But is not our Lord's facing shining upon me, upon us, even though we can't seem to see Him?

  Has He not shone His face upon us through Jesus Christ?

  The LORD bless you and keep you;
  the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
  the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
  Numbers 6:24-26

  Is He not with me here in this pit? Yes, of course He is! Thanks be to God. Yes, clouds are covering the sun today, yes, certainly they are. I would be a liar if I said there were no clouds today. Yes, darkness veils His lovely face, yet I still believe Him with the eyes of faith, and I am striving to enter into His rest, so I might rest in His unchanging grace. One thing I know is that I can never rest in my feelings! My feelings today would tell me God has left me, so I must rest in His grace and in His promises to me. Are we to walk by sight or by faith? By faith! Are we to walk in the flesh or in the Spirit? In the Spirit! Does Jesus tell us to live by feelings? No, He tells us we live by the Word of God. So I must plant myself by His streams of water once more and drink deeply of His Word. I may not feel like rejoicing, but I can always go to His Word. Always! Will I not find Him there? Amen. I can go to Him who has the words of life! Yes, it's difficult for me to see Him right now. Yes, it's difficult for me to feel Him. Yet I know He is here with me. That is His promise to me, to all of us whom He has purchased with His precious blood. Let us go to the word and the testimony! Let us fight off our feelings and the deception of the devil with the Word of God. His Word is truth. We're never going to be able to rejoice in Him apart from His truth.
  

  Psalm 139

  7 Where shall I go from your Spirit?
  Or where shall I flee from your presence?
  8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
  If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
  9 If I take the wings of the morning
  and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
  10 even there your hand shall lead me,
  and your right hand shall hold me.
  11 If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me,
  and the light about me be night,
  12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
  the night is bright as the day,
  for darkness is as light with you.

  Here is the truth for us as children of God! Is there anywhere we can go from Him where He is not with us? Amen. No there is not! Never will He leave us, never will He forsake us! Glory has come down and filled our souls. Even while we're in the pit. His glory tabernacles in and with us!

  Joint-heir with Jesus, let us both take heart right now and if we can do nothing else but this, let us proclaim together that He is ever present with us for He dwells in us and has promised to be with us to the end of the age. This is the mustard seed of our rejoicing, is it not? Will we not trust He will grow it into the largest tree in due time?

  Has God's love for us in Jesus Christ changed? No. Is His love for us any less today than it was yesterday? No. Is our great High Priest not continuing to intercede for us at the right hand of the Father? Of course He is! We're feeling alone but yet are we ever alone? No, of course not! He was forsaken so we might not be! Hallelujah!

  I've been struggling to rejoice in the Lord and have been for a couple days now. I feel like Cowper who wrote the words: where is the blessedness I knew... (Oh, you know full well the blessedness I knew just a few days ago. I've not been to the third heaven but I did begin to have some inkling as to what Paul meant by that...) But yet I must move beyond my feelings and my circumstances. When I remain rooted in my feelings and my circumstances, I get stuck. I must look away to Jesus! Yes, He is rejoicing my soul even now. Praise His Holy Name.

  What recourse do we have at times like this? Let's look at what David did in Psalm 86 (NKJV).

  Bow down Your ear, O LORD, hear me;
           For I am poor and needy.
   2 Preserve my life, for I am holy;
           You are my God;
           Save Your servant who trusts in You!
   3 Be merciful to me, O Lord,
           For I cry to You all day long.
   4 Rejoice the soul of Your servant,
           For to You, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
   5 For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive,
           And abundant in mercy to all those who call upon You.

  Over a year ago when I was reading Psalm 86, it began to hit me what the root of real joy is and how we can experience joy.

  Look at those verses again. You'll see that joy begins to come to us when we remember that we can cry out to God and we can lift up our souls to God because God is good and God is ready to bow down and hear us because we are His children. He is ready to forgive us and He is abundant in mercy to us for Christ's sake. True joy is based in our relationship to God through Jesus Christ. We've been washed in the blood! We are His! He is our God! O, what privileges we have! We can go to the throne of grace to find mercy and help in our time of need.

  Right now we are poor and needy like David, are we not? Do we almost feel as if He does not hear us? Yet when we are downtrodden and in full lament, we can go to Him and He will hear us because He has come to us! God reconciled us to Himself through the cross. He has given us the spirit of adoption so we can call to Him, "Abba, Father."

  We sometimes feel our life is being snuffed out (do you not feel that way right now?)...yet God will preserve our lives in Him because He is our life! He has come to dwell in our souls. He is our life!

  We are holy because Christ's righteousness has been credited to us by faith! So we are welcome to come into His presence. We are His children and He is not ashamed of us. We have been accepted in the Beloved.

  We are not without hope because our hope is not rooted in our feelings or circumstances but in our Anchor who is a steadfast and sure Hope who holds within the veil. Therefore we can approach Him in our time of need. I think right now would qualify as a time of need, don't you? We are feeling torn asunder, yet let us rejoice in this: the veil has been torn! We can enter into the Holy of Holies along with the pioneer of our faith. And not meekly enter, but boldly enter. Like the importunate widow. We can be confident. We can be certain. Joy is rising, is it not, even as we reflect on the wondrous atonement! The body pierced for our transgressions, the blood shed for the forgiveness of our sins! No we can't rejoice in our circumstances, but we can always rejoice in Him! Yes! We can rejoice that we can enter into the presence of God!

  Look at David here. David is having trouble rejoicing! It's a reminder we will struggle. There are a whole slew of Psalms like this. We have to remember that we have a God who hears our cries and is mercy and compassionate and loving to us! That's the key. We can never buy into the devil's lies that God has forsaken or forgotten us.

  When we struggle with rejoicing in the Lord, we must keep remembering that through our the precious blood of Jesus Christ, we can approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace in time of need. For all who have believed on Christ by grace through faith, the way to throne of grace is open to us to enter into the very presence of God through the broken body and shed blood of our Savior. So as I said, we can rejoice because no matter what is happening to us because we still have our relationship to God through Christ, no matter how hot the fire or how deep the water or how turbulent the winds. I know I am repeating myself here, but I need to repeat these things to myself today. When we forget Him and His wondrous work for us, where does that leave us? There is real power in our knowing and rehearsing and remembering that we are children of God and the love God has shown to us in Jesus Christ. Forget not His benefits! This good news has power. The good news is the power of God unto salvation. Our salvation isn't just being saved from the punishment for our sins or even from being delivered from the power of our sins (oh, yes, those things are wonderful gifts of God, indeed). Our salvation is so much more than that: it is life with God which includes fullness of joy! We have fellowship with God Himself. He desires our joy to be complete! As we fix our eyes on our circumstances, we can easily forget how much our God loves us and who we are in Christ. Our knowing the truth about God is absolutely critical and essential to our fighting for joy and our ability to rejoice. Jesus' desire is that we know His fullness of joy. Let's fight for joy together, my friend, and continue to go to Him and His Word!

  7 The law of the LORD is perfect,
  reviving the soul;
  the testimony of the LORD is sure,
  making wise the simple;
  8 the precepts of the LORD are right,
  rejoicing the heart;
  the commandment of the LORD is pure,
  enlightening the eyes...
  Psalm 19:7-8

  Reviving. Are we not in need of it? Apart from the Word, we are withering.

  Wisdom. Are we not in need of it? Apart from the Word, we are perplexed.

  Rejoicing. Are we not in need of it? Apart from the Word, we are mourning.

  Enlightenment. Are we not in need of it? Apart from the Word, we are blind.

  To whom shall we go? O, let us always go to Him who has the words of eternal life!

  Go back to Psalm 86 and see what David says about God. He says that God is the one who rejoices, gladdens, or makes glad our souls (v. 4, NKJV, ESV, NIV, respectively). What does that mean? That means that joy itself is a gift from God, God is the one who makes my soul rejoice, who makes my soul be glad. The only true joy is found in God through Jesus Christ. We can't expect to experience His joy unless we go straight to the One who is true and pure and unadulterated Joy. Anyone else, anyone else will not do. Notice David says, "To You I lift up my soul." To whom? To the Lord. Let us go to the Lord first! He alone will rejoice our souls. Accept no substitutes!

  I'm not saying that if we go to the Lord in prayer and in the Word that in ten minutes or after we've read a chapter in the Bible, we will be able to rejoice again. No, God does not work like that! Our relationship with Him is not a cookie cutter formula. I can't give you twelve guaranteed steps to joy! I would say that anyone who does so doesn't really know God. We can't control God or know His timing. We are each fearfully and wonderfully made. How He will work in you will differ from how He will work in me. But we do know that God does want us to experience His joy, fullness of joy. Let's not allow Satan to get the upper hand in that. If we remember our God wants to us to rejoice and that God wants to rejoice our souls, we have already gone on offense and begun to storm the gates of hell, have we not? Amen. When we go to God, we open ourselves up to God's joy bubbling up in us as we keep our minds fixed on our Father and His love, mercy and grace shown to us in Christ (e.g.- those things we've read about God in Psalm 86:3,5). Those very basic things about the Gospel that we take for granted. We need to remind ourselves of these things for they are our very life. Again, that's living by the Word of God and walking by faith. We must continue to eat and drink in the truth about God, even though we may not feel joyful. As we do so we trust He will rejoice our souls in His time.

  Let's look a little more at Psalm 86. I don't really want to overanalyze here, but we can read the Bible and these wonderful truths about God there and gloss over them. Let's soak in these truths about the character of our God. I know I'm going to be repeating myself, but we need to keep hearing these things (I know I do!). Like the Psalmist (43), are we not downtrodden and cast down? Is our Lord not the health of our countenance? Why would refuse to drink of Him, of His life-giving tonic, so we might receive comfort for our disconsolate souls?

  Consider here the mercy, grace and goodness of God. He overlooks our sins. He does not punish us as we deserve. Mercy is God's not giving us what we deserved: we deserved God's full wrath, but God poured His wrath out upon His Son on the cross once for all. All our sins have been punished in Christ. We deserved condemnation but instead we have been given everlasting life! That's God's mercy! Well, it's also God's grace. The two are really inseparable, are they not?

  When we don't get what we deserve. That's a real good thing. A real good thing...
  When we get what we don't deserve. That's a real good thing. A real good thing...
  (from "Real Good Thing" - Newsboys)
  

  A real good thing indeed! God is good and ready to forgive and abundant in mercy. How can a holy God be ready to forgive our sins and be abundant in mercy? Through the cross of Christ! (You know this is why I keep insisting on the need for the Church to get back to the preaching of Christ and Him crucified. We have no other message to preach, do we?) In Jesus Christ, God not only took the punishment we deserve, but then God grants us full and free forgiveness and a life with Him! Fellowship with Him. The God who sits enthroned above the heavens comes down to dwell in our souls! God's grace is God giving us what we do not deserve: pardon from our sins and everlasting life with Him. We were guilty, but when we believe on Christ's sacrifice, He says we are not guilty! And then to read that God is abundant in mercy to all who call on Him. Notice that: abundant in mercy. Not just a little bit, but an overflowing abundance of mercy. As I already said, God never does anything halfway!

  Our salvation is all a gift of God. We didn't earn it, we can't earn it and we don't deserve any of it. What a wondrous God we have! What a glorious Gospel of salvation! We have a good God. We have a God who is for us. He gave His only begotten Son in our place to die for us. We have a merciful and gracious God. How can we not be joyful as we remember that, even when all else in the world seems to be going against us, our God is still for us? (See Romans 8:31-39.)

  Our heavenly Father wants to give us good gifts. Since Jesus desires that our joy might be full and His joy would remain in us and since joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, can we not boldly go to the throne of grace and ask our Father to rejoice our souls like David did? Is that not what David was doing there in Psalm 86? David knew the goodness, mercy and grace of God, therefore he was going boldly. Let's go boldly. We have every right to do so. Let's avail ourselves of the blood-bought privilege of communion with God Himself!

  I am not one to say we should go around and name it and claim it by any means (asking in Jesus' name means much more than naming and claiming a thing--it's much more than getting out your shopping list or laundry list of requests and expecting or even demanding that God answer you because you've "asked in Jesus' name"), but I honestly come to you and ask you this: should we not be coming before God to ask Him to gladden our souls when we have lost the sense of God's joy?

  In Psalm 86 we find David saying — no not merely saying — but crying out, we find that David is pleading to God all day long, "Give me your joy, O God! I'm not feeling very joyful here. In fact, my joy is gone. You are my only source of joy. Please gladden my soul. I cannot work up joy; it is a gift, it is a grace from Your loving and merciful hand." I see David here as no different than the importunate widow in Luke 18. And we know that our Father is heaven is much more than willing to give good gifts to His children when we ask Him than the unjust judge who ended up giving the widow justice because of her continual coming. Should we not be continually coming to God for joy? Is this not vital for us?

  No matter what we're feeling today, no matter what we're experiencing today, no matter what our circumstances, no matter how much or how little we have, no matter if people have forsaken us or betrayed us, if we are Christ's we have a God in heaven who is ready to hear us, who is good to us, who is ready to forgive us and is abundant in mercy. We may not feel joyful, but we can never confuse our feelings with our position in Christ. We may not feel joyful, we may not feel God is with us, we may feel God has forsaken us, but let us remember that true joy is rooted in our relationship to the living God, not in our feelings. And it is at those times that we need to cry out with David, Rejoice the soul of Your servant. And to keep crying out to Him.

  We see David not feeling joyful (just like us today — don't you thank God for the honesty of the Bible! — for how often many of us do not feel joyful?), but David still knows in his head that he has every reason to be joyful for His Lord has been so good to Him (he's speaking to himself the Gospel, you see, and in fact, the only reason David is able to come to God, to lift up his soul to God, to appeal to God is because David knows deep down that God is good and merciful and gracious), but during this particular season of his life he's lost that sense of joy. So David boldly appeals to God, the one and only true source of joy, to rejoice his soul. "I'm lifting up my soul to you today. I'm empty. I can't find joy in anything or anyone else but You. I know that. So, Lord, please rejoice my soul. I am downcast. I am weary. I want to run the race with joy for You for Your salvation is great toward me. I know You are merciful and gracious and good, so I'm coming to You. Pour out your mercies and grace upon me and rejoice my soul this very day."

  That's my prayer today: for Him to rejoice my soul. I'm fighting for joy like David did. I hope you are also.

  Is this not what Jesus desires for us?

  that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full...John 15:11b.

  God's Word is health for our sick souls, is it not? He's sent out His light and truth. It is now our responsibility to abide in Him and in His Word, His light and His truth. When we do, will they not lead us back to Him so we might praise God once again and rejoice in Him once more?

  O send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles.
  4 Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy: yea, upon the harp will I praise thee, O God my God.
  5 Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.
  

  –Psalm 43:3-5, KJV
  

  May the God of hope fill [us] with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit [we] may abound in hope.
  

  Rejoice the souls of Your servants!

  • 7:18 PM
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