Rejoicing despite pain leads to pleasure.

While reading Nehemiah, I read a passage that led to singing a song from my past, “The joy of the Lord is my strength.”

The Spirit told me to meditate on the word joy. So, I opened my e-Sword app and discovered that the ancient Hebrew word for “joy” was made up of two pictures – a wall and a door. You walk through a wall via a door.

These pictures went on to carry the meaning of the unity of two working as one, like two blades of a sword coming to a sharp point.

I then understood this word to mean two walking as one through life’s obstacles (pain) via a door to the other side or victory (pleasure). In this case, the two are you and the Lord as it’s “the joy of the Lord.” We are not walking alone, but with the Lord.

The Spirit led me to John 10:7 where Jesus is the gate. We don’t climb over the fence, but through it via a gate, which is Jesus who opens it for us as we knock on it through prayer (Matt. 7:7). He also led me to Revelation 3:8 where Jesus says He opens doors that can’t be shut. Pretty cool, huh?

As I continued to meditate, I found it interesting that struggling is the context of “rejoice in the Lord always.” We rejoice by faith knowing that He will see us through the struggle to victory or pleasure, which lies on the other side of our struggle.

We all face challenges (walls/pain) in the process of becoming like and walking with Jesus. Yet we can rejoice. Jesus is the door, and as we seek Him, opens the door and give us the strength to walk through the door that can’t be closed on us.

Through meditating on the Word, I discovered that joy is not dependent upon my circumstances, my feelings or plastered on happy faces. No, I can rejoice, even before I start walking, in His ability to give me the power to get through the obstacle in order to experience victory, which definitely feels good.

Pleasure before pain, or pain before pleasure. Our way is the former, which is the quick fix or the path of least resistance. His way is the latter, which strengthens our faith in Jesus despite our struggles.

Easy? No. But change never is. Yet, we can rejoice in and on the way through it.

Slow down and meditate on the truths He gives you when struggles come. He will open your eyes to what you need to see to get through them. So, don’t cheat the process. Go through it!

God’s methods are not as important as He is.

One of Hezekiah’s first acts as king was to clean Judah’s house quite literally of idols and false places of worship. Yet, 2 Kings 18 records a very interesting statement, “He broke into pieces the bronze snake that Moses made.”

A little history lesson is needed. The Israelites became impatient with God’s methodology and started whining. Soon after running out of food, God satisfied their hunger with bread from heaven.

Every day they saw God miraculously provide for their needs. Instead of thanking God, though, they started complaining that God’s food was lousy. He longer was who they thought He should be.

God’s response? He sent snakes to get their attention. Oh did they ever! Some people were bitten and died. Others were left in pain who now looked to God and His solution, which was for Moses to take a snake and wrap it around a pole. In order for them to be healed, all they had to do was to look at the snake on a pole.

The lesson was simple: It wasn’t the bread or snake that solved their problems. It was God using various means to do so.

Now fast forward a few centuries to Hezekiah. This same bronze snake was still hanging around! In fact, people were burning incense to it as if the snake did all the work. They worshipped the instrument rather than God Himself.

Hezekiah destroyed this snake. He learned his lesson from history. He sought the Lord, who used an entirely different method to take care of a vastly superior enemy.

Stop looking for God to act the same way each time you face a challenge. He just might surprise you in how He solves it. He used ravens with Elijah!

Our God is the same faithful God today as He was in Scripture and is eager to prove it to us today.

2 Chronicles 21 tells the story of King Jehoram’s early decisions to not follow the LORD. First, once he was established as King, his insecurities led him to kill every single brother he had! All rivals to his throne were now gone.

And second, he married a daughter of Ahab, a wicked king of Israel. He followed her influence, which led him to doing “evil in the sight of the LORD.”

Did he deserve to be dethroned? Yes. Was he? No, God showed him grace and mercy. Did he deserve to die? Yes. Was he? No, God again showed him grace and mercy. God gave him time after more time to turn to and follow Him.

This was done because God was faithful to the promise that He made to King David. The chronicler wrote, “The LORD was not willing to destroy the house of David, because of the covenant that He had made with David.”

God had to remain true to Himself. He gave David’s prodigies chance after chance to get it right, until years later, the line of David stopped having a son on the throne.

Wait a second, was God now being unfaithful to His promise? No. Centuries later, Jesus, a descendant of David, would be born and then would one day sit on David’s throne in line with God’s promise to David. God was and is faithful to His promises.

Our goal is to be like Jesus in every thought and action. And because it is a process, we should praise God for and focus on His mercy and grace, rather than on our failures.

We should also thank God for His forgiveness because He “is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” when we confess our sins/failures to Him.

God was faithful when He wrote those words almost 2,000 years ago. And, He is just as faithful today. Think about it. Why would you ever want to become like Jesus if you couldn’t count on Him to be faithful to His promises?

Yet, our God is faithful. Thank God He is!

More of Jesus, less of me.

“I sure wish Jesus had nothing to say.” Can you imagine that?

You’re probably asking, “What in the world is he talking about?” John writes in 1 John 2 that obedience is the goal of those who love Jesus. Obedience is how we show, not just say, we love God that results in less sinning which each choice of obedience.

John then goes on to say, if we do sin, though, Jesus has our back with the Father. “Hey, Abba, I’ve got that one and that one and that one and that one….” He doesn’t want us to mess up, but He also realizes that the process of growth/change is never a straight line.

Change is never easy. The between zone (April 25, 2024 entry) can get pretty ugly and rough at times. Our Father, though, is love. And, He tells us that perfect love doesn’t fear punishment or shame as He took care of both on the cross through Jesus’ death. Love is what draws us near to Him.  

Yes, Jesus is a great talker. But, how about giving Him a rest so He can hear more of our praises for both the small and big victories He is producing in us? Less sin and more praises.

Less of me is indeed more Him, don’t you think?

Anchors are good, unless they’re holding you back.

My wife and I like to fish from our kayaks while taking in the majestic scenery around us. And once we find a spot where the fish are biting, we put down anchor so our kayaks stay in that place. We want to spend more time fishing than we do setting up to or trolling for fish.

Yet if the fish stop biting, we have to pull up anchor to go where they are. In our walks with Christ, it’s scary to pull up that anchor!

We love to stay put even though the fish are long gone while blaming our complacency on the false belief that the fish have just stopped biting. Maybe, or maybe it’s because change is hard.

Change, however, leads us to where Christ wants us to be…closer to Him. We must be willing to let the past victories go, the hurts from our losses or the hurts others have caused us in order to move forward with Jesus.

There is a song I sung as a kid, “Where He leads me I will follow.” This has not always been true in my life. Probably like you, I like being comfortable; and yet, walking with Him is not always comfortable.

Yes, anchors keep is stable. They were not meant, though, to stay in one place forever. They were meant to hold us in place until a need to move arose.

Is Jesus asking you to move forward? If so, it’s time to pull up anchor and move to where He wants you to be.

Have the fish have moved on, but you haven’t? It’s time to recognize that you love comfort and normal more than growing as a believer in Jesus.

Is Christ asking you to move to a new location, a new ministry, a new of thinking or believing? Whatever it is, you gotta let it go to find the true fulfillment that can only be found in moving forward with Jesus.