Instruct the wise, and they will be even wiser
Believers in Christ have every reason to rejoice. “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:1-3). Christians should be rejoicing at all times. There are so many scriptures that talk about joy, and the benefits of joy. We are supposed to rejoice in the Lord always. I can spend several hours referring them to you. “I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.2 My soul shall make its boast in the Lord; The humble shall hear of it and be glad. 3 Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together” (Ps. 34:1-3). “Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10).
Friend, I encourage you to start your day rejoicing. No joy, no strength. If the devil can steal your joy, he can steal your strength. The Bible says, “This is the day the Lord has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it”. The reason why you must begin the day with joy in the Lord is that the joy of the lord is your strength, it’s every believer’s strength. Everyone wants to start the day strong. People will be saying you shouldn’t be ministering on this, you ought to go onto something else, but the bible says “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” If you don’t have joy, you don’t have strength. “Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10). Jesus said in John 16:33 to cheer up even in difficult situation. Paul, writing from prison said, “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say, rejoice!” (Phil. 4:4). If you let the devil steal your joy, then you let Him steal your strength.
Just compare this to your physical body. What will happen if you have no strength? If you are around people who have no strength or who are physically weak, you will find that it’s a miserable existence. It affects everything, you can’t do anything when you don’t have any strength. If you don’t have the joy of the Lord operating in your life, then according to scripture, you do not have strength. There are so many Christians who are not operating in joy. Most Christians believe that joy is a by-product of circumstances. My friend, you cannot rely on people and circumstances to give you joy. Don’t spend your time waiting for circumstances to change or waiting for everything in your life to be perfect before you rejoice. Start rejoicing now!
A good reason to rejoice is because you have something good. The Lord is your portion. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I hope in Him!” (Lamentations 3:24). Do you find it difficult to rejoice? One thing the enemy is trying to do is to discourage you. But the good news is, you can choose to control your feelings. God is always trying to help you find true joy. Joy is not based on what’s happening in your life. If we don’t have anything else, we’ve got the best thing in the whole world because we’ve got God. God is our portion, and He is good, so we all possess good. The only person who can be permanently happy and rejoice is the one who enjoys peace of mind and lives in the favour of God. God’s favour is so amazing.
We need to believe God for favour because when God puts His favour on you, you’ll experience the amazing difference in the things that can happen in your life. And this is all because you begin to trust God to supernaturally open doors for you. Rejoice because God is good, and every good and perfect gift comes from Him.
" If you let the devil steal your joy, then you let Him steal your strength. "
17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning” (James 1:17). So, you can rejoice because you have something good, but you can also rejoice because you are expecting something good that you haven’t had yet. Not just rejoicing occasionally, but continuously. You ought to be magnifying and praising the Lord and rejoicing in the Lord always!
Another reason to rejoice is because you are seeking God. Let all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You; Let such as love Your salvation say continually, “The Lord be magnified!” (Ps. 40:16). If you are seeking God, then you are supposed to be rejoicing. Someone will say, I’m seeking the Lord, but I haven’t got my deliverance yet, I haven’t got answers to my prayers yet, I haven’t got solutions to my problems yet. Well, if you are operating in faith, the scriptures say in many places that you must rejoice. “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 15 And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him” (1 John 5:14-15).
When you are seeking God and believing, then the answer is in the pipeline or on its way, and so you need to start rejoicing and praising God on this side of the problem and not only on the other side. You can rejoice on this side of the red sea, and not wait until you have crossed to the other side of the red sea. “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:6-7). That peace will fill you with joy. If all the problems are removed, then it takes no faith. You must operate in faith. If we say that we believe in God, one of the ways that you can tell that you truly believe in God is whether you are rejoicing and praising God. That’s what these verses of scripture are saying.
Also, rejoice because the Lord thinks about you. “But I am poor and needy; Yet the Lord thinks upon me. You are my help and my deliverer; Do not delay, O my God” (Ps. 40:17). Some people will say but I’m needy, I’m poor, I haven’t got all my needs met, I have got all of these problems. You are just magnifying and looking into your problems. Look at the verse again, ‘yet the Lord thinks about me’. That’s an awesome statement. Even if everything in your life is going wrong, you can just change your focus and instead of looking at those problems and magnifying them, rather think and say God almighty, the King of kings, and Lord of lords thinks of me. God thinks about you and me. If you can just think about just that one fact alone, it will cause you to rejoice.
Others may say it’s true, I’m missing it in every area, I have been failing constantly, how could God ever think about me? He says, ‘But I am poor and needy; Yet the Lord thinks upon me.’ If you understand the gospel properly, here is almighty God who loves us, with all our imperfections, failings, and weaknesses, and yet God almighty loves us and thinks about us. If that’s not enough to make you rejoice, then you need to refocus on what you are paying attention to. You need to let God touch your life because, thinking about the fact that God almighty loves you will cause you to rejoice. We’ve got a lot to be rejoicing over. If you are seeking God, do what Ps. 40:16 says: Let all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You; Let such as love Your salvation say continually, “The Lord be magnified!”
