WHY
DOES GOD WANT US TO “REJOICE ALWAYS"?
By: Norm Rasmussen
There
is a key to help walk in spiritual victory (remaining free from discouragement
and joylessness). Maybe you know
what this key is. Or, maybe you
need to be reminded of it afresh and anew.
Yet if you’ve never learned what this key is, you owe it to yourself to
learn about it.
Fear and anger is growing across the land. Financial stress from loss of jobs and reductions in wages and benefits is on the increase, not to mention that many are having to work harder under more pressure to pick up the slack for those who have been let go, just to keep business running. Terrorism, war and rumors of war, and the awful effects it leaves on families and loved ones, visits the innocent. Retirement statements aren’t even being opened by many anymore as of this writing, due to the pain it brings from those whose futures have been altered by the “cancer” that seemingly has invaded the stock market since 2000. Corporate greed and lies have siphoned confidence out from underneath the feet of investors unlike anything America has ever experienced in modern history. Politicians seem to have run out of believable promises to get our vote, because we know most of them are promises that are incapable of being fulfilled due to insurmountable roadblocks that stand in the way. Children are being abused, various diseases are on the increase, and marriage is getting harder and harder to keep together. The list could go on and on, but I’m sure you’ve read enough.
Goodness
… what is a Christian to do to cope will all this doom and gloom,
stress, fear and emotional pain? Get
your doctor to prescribe you Prozac, if you’re not already on it?
Pay big bucks to have a physiatrist listen to how bad life is for you?
Well … as the Lord leads you, but first consider doing something
much more radical. Radical?
Absolutely! God’s secret
to overcoming the problems of this world is so radical that it’s mind boggling
… to those who are not in Jesus
Christ, or to young Christians who have yet to hear of God’s remedy for
helping overcome the problems and pain this life likes to hand each of us.
Surely
Christians during the Bible times didn’t have to deal with all this pain and
stress and doom and gloom like we are, did they?
Let’s take a brief look at some of the “challenges” early-day
Christians faced. Here’s some
quotations from the Apostle Paul: “…In
stripes (whippings) above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often.
From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one.
Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was
shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in
perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in
perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;
in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings
often, in cold and nakedness – (2 Corinthians 11:23-27 NKJV)
Then
we have another portion of God’s Word that records:
And others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might
obtain a better resurrection. Still
others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and
imprisonment. They were stoned,
they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword.
They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute,
afflicted, tormented – of whom the world was not worthy.
They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.
(Hebrews 35-38 NKJV).
I
don’t know about you, but I don’t envy those first century
Christians. Seems to me they were
treated rather unfairly and harshly. They
must have been a disobedient bunch, to have all that “bad” inflicted on
them, right? HARDLY!
That has been normal Christianity since Christ ascended
back to heaven right up to the present. Everything
that happened to first century Christians is happening right now in certain
parts of the world. Christians living in America have pretty much been exempted
from the severest persecution for the last 200 years, but we all know that can
change at the drop of a hat.
Let’s say things do start changing for the worse in America and other parts of the world for Christians sooner than what any of us care to imagine. Let’s say the rapture doesn’t happen as soon as many of us would like or expect, and persecution breaks out in unimaginable proportions. What are we going to do to cope? How can we possibly hold up under such pain? God has given us a secret weapon, brothers and sisters. God has given us a weapon this world laughs at. God has given us a secret weapon even Satan himself cannot find a means to render useless, once we make up our minds to use it on a daily basis. Are you ready to learn of this secret weapon?
Here it is:
REJOICING
Are
you disappointed? Don’t be.
Please hear us out. We’re
not the first to discover this secret, nor will we be the last.
In fact, Jesus Himself used this weapon frequently to handle the stress
He faced. You just have to see
through the eyes of the Holy Spirit to pick up on it.
Nevertheless, it’s there recorded in the Bible, just in a disguised
way. Jesus got alone frequently to
pray to the Father. That’s where
He got His marching orders. That’s where He got His strength.
But it’s also where He got healed from the stress and
emotional pain that he experienced from living life as a mere human.
When Jesus got alone to pray … He took time to praise.
It wasn’t just dialogue alone to the Father as we might assume it was.
How did He praise then, you might ask?
He gave thanks often to the Father.
Jesus was an absolute “fanatic” when it came to giving thanks to The
Father. Ever notice what the first
thing that came out of the mouth of Jesus when He prayed publicly to the Father?
“Father, I thank you …”
That was the highest expression of praise
that the Son of God could give to His Father as onlookers watched.
He didn’t do it for show, however.
He meant it with every fiber of His being.
He knew it was spiritual power to counter the cares of this world.
He knew it was healing to a bruised soul and spirit.
He knew it was what sent demons fleeing in the spirit realm, and He knew
it was what attracted the angels of God to do bidding on His behalf.
What
we can’t prove from the Bible is whether Jesus actually sang songs of praise
and adoration to the Father during his times of solitude alone praying, but
I’ll make you a bet: I’ll bet my mansion waiting for me in heaven that He
sang some of the most precious songs of praise and adoration unto His Father
ever heard in all creation. I
can only surmise that hell got hotter when He praised and tormented demons
screeched louder with howls of pain unlike anything hell had ever handed them
before.
Here
is a nugget of insight that is worth more than all the money in this world: If
your heart is fixed on an attitude of rejoicing, no storm of adversity will ever
keep you down.
Did
one storm ever take the Apostle Paul down for very long?
No, not one. What was the
secret to Paul holding up through all the suffering he had to endure?
He knew how to rejoice.
Rejoicing is praise. Rejoicing
is thanking God that He is
in control of the affairs of man and the devil, though it may “appear” that
He’s not at times, even to the point of one’s death through persecution.
God
made the stars in the sky and keeps them there in their proper place.
Rejoicing is thanking God that, one day, Satan and his demon hosts will
be forever locked up into everlasting torment.
Rejoicing is realizing that God can stop our heart from beating in the
flick of an eye, and our suffering will immediately stop forever henceforth.
Rejoicing is realizing that God didn’t have to save me, but He did,
free of charge, no matter how much I fail Him.
In fact, rejoicing is reminding ourselves that God doesn’t care so much
where I’ve come from: only how determined I am to become more of a rejoicer
when adversity strikes me. Rejoicing
is reminding ourselves that the Bible says that you and I deserve hell, not
heaven, yet heaven is to be our home if we don’t quit on Him.
Rejoicing is knowing that “all things work together for our good, who
are called according to His purpose,” (Romans 8:28).
Rejoicing means that for those in hell, there is no possible way to
rejoice ever again … through all eternity.
Job made a profound statement we Christians today need to constantly remind ourselves of. “Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” (Job 2:10). Certainly we need to have confidence that God’s protection is around us at all times. Certainly we need to believe that God delights in prospering His people. Yet here is what we have to wonder might play out as we move closer to end times: Adversity striking most Christians of an unimaginable magnitude. The Apostle Paul had revelation that just prior to the antichrist being revealed, it would be preceded “by a great falling away.” The revelation we can get on this portion of scripture is that a large number of Christians will grow cold in their daily relationship with Jesus Christ because of feeling - then ultimately believing - that God has let them down. What would cause such a thing to happen? Adversity. God allowing Satan to sift the Body of Christ like wheat like he sifted Job and Peter, and many other heroes of the faith recorded in scripture. What will be the key to staying close to the Lord in mind, body, and spirit and not “fall away from Him” when adversity visits you and I? Be a disciplined … daily disciplined rejoicer. Be a disciplined … daily disciplined praiser of God. Be a disciplined … daily disciplined thanks giver of God. Being persuaded beyond all doubt that God knows what is needed for each of us in this lifetime to build Godly character that will last for all eternity.
Does
it make a little more sense to you why God told us through the person of
the Apostle Paul to: “Rejoice always, and again I say, “Rejoice!”
(Philippians 4:4). And NOW
do you have a clearer insight into HOW Paul could say in Philippians 4:13: I
can do all things through Christ who strengthens me?
The strength Christ gave Him came from His never-ending discipline of
rejoicing. It’s where you and I
will find sufficient strength and determination to weather every storm and still
remain standing … rather than growing spiritually cold and succumbing to
Satan’s lie of feeling like God has let us down.
Rejoicing
is an attitude. It is a
statement of our innermost being that nothing God allows Satan to do to me is
going to cause me to grow disillusioned with my Savior.
It is a statement to self: ‘Though
the Lord slay me (allows Satan to sift me like wheat), yet will I trust
Him.” (Job 13:15,
paraphrased). Wisdom would include
this belief in Job’s statement: ‘Though
the Lord slay me (allows Satan to sift me like wheat), yet will I rejoice
in Him … always.”
Though
it is difficult to prove from scripture to make an ironclad case, I believe a
time in the future (and we may be closer to it than what we realize) is
coming when God is going to allow “the financial and blessing carpet to be
pulled out from underneath a lot of Christians.” Some have so focused on
prosperity teachings that they’ve failed to balance out their relationship
with God by seeking wisdom and insight on adversity teachings as well.
God warned us in His Word that we need to weigh the cost of becoming His
disciple. What cost would there be
to weight if all God did was prosper followers of Jesus Christ with 100%
financial wealth, and 100% physical and emotional health?
The whole world would convert to Christianity in no time if that were
what people could get out of becoming a Christian.
Praise God for financial prosperity and favor.
Praise God for perfect health. But
praise God if we are cold, naked and hungry and favor and blessing seems to have
slipped away from us for unknown reasons other than: “Shall we not accept
adversity with God along with our eternal Salvation?”
(Job 2:10).
When
one is facing painful adversity, it is easy to forget that God is building Godly
character in us through that suffering that will equip us to rule and reign with
Him in the future. Suffering is
working an eternal weight of glory in us (See 2 Corinthians 4:17-18), not
prosperity, as we would like. Nowhere
in scripture does God tell us that prosperity works an eternal weight of glory
in us. But there are numerous
passages that tell us that suffering works good in us.
God
knew His refining fire for His people was not going to be easy for them.
That’s why He has told us to be rejoicers.
Being a rejoicer is the best medicine God has prescribed for us when we
are ill from our storms of adversity. No
storm will keep us down for very long if we take our daily dose of rejoicing.
And … Jesus will help you rejoice through His strength, the
strength the Holy Spirit provides, when you’ve ran out of your own, if
you’re wise (desperate?) enough to tap into it.
Be wise, always.
God
speaks of the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.
(See Hebrews 13:15). That
means praising with thanksgiving when we don’t feel like praising with
thanksgiving. Substitute
“rejoicing” in the place of “praise and thanksgiving.”
The sacrifice of rejoicing is perhaps the most difficult spiritual
discipline a follower of Jesus Christ can grasp hold of, yet the most powerful
and the most useful during times of adversity.
Realizing that rejoicing is a spiritual weapon is vital in using this powerful weapon. However, if one just places this weapon in “the gun cabinet” and does nothing but look at it … and never uses it, what good is it? Our heavenly Father has not given followers of Jesus Christ weapons just to look at. Followers began a spiritual war the moment they got serious with their Creator. Their adversary made sure of it! This battle is going to continue until they leave this planet. Who wins more skirmishes than they lose, will be those who use … who apply … the weapons the Captain of our Salvation has provided us with.
If you would like to read Norm's born again testimony, you can click on this link: http://precious-testimonies.com/BornAgain/L-N/Norm.htm
Dear Reader - are you at peace with God? If not, you can be. Do you know what awaits you when you die? You can have the assurance from the Holy Spirit that heaven will be your home, if you would like to be certain. Either Jesus Christ died for yours sins, or He didn't (He did!). Are you prepared to stand before God on the Judgment Day and tell Him that you didn't need the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the Cross to cover your sins? We plead with you ... please don't make such a tragic mistake.
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