Where does our strength come from?

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, rejoice!” (Phillipians 4v4)

Why does God repeatedly remind us to rejoice, regardless of what is going on in our lives. It’s a very foreign concept to human nature. “Rejoice in all circumstances,” He says. In all circumstances? What happens if I’m going through hell? What happens if nothing is working out the way it is supposed to?"

“I will say it again. Rejoice!” says the Lord.

The bible says “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” (Nehemiah 8v10) So the first thing the enemy wants to steal from you, is your joy. Just like a robber who goes straight for the safe because he knows the most valuable things are in there, so the enemy goes straight for your joy. If he can get that, he knows he has robbed you of your strength in the Lord. Like Samson lost his physical strength when his hair was cut, so we lose our spiritual strength when we lose our joy. So when God says “I will say it again, rejoice,” He is repeating himself like a loving father trying to tell his child something of great importance. As our eyes move anxiously to those things that are of temporal value,  God reminds us to focus on that which has eternal value.

I remember long ago a pastor saying “Satan cannot sow seeds in a grateful heart.” This has stuck with me because I have found it to be so true. None of the enemy’s seeds can grow in the soil of a grateful heart. But an ungrateful heart is the perfect soil for his seeds to flourish. Gratefulness is a state of mind. It’s the difference between getting to the end of the day and say “Lord, thankyou that I had my daily bread today. True to your word, you have provided everything I needed for today,” as opposed to “What about tomorrow? I had enough today, but will there be enough tomorrow?” …Same circumstances, different heart… The first heart is safe from losing its joy, but the second heart is on dangerous ground.

I believe thankfulness and joy are intricately linked. The bible says “Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” (1 Thess 5v18) Again those two strange little words: “all circumstances.” Give thanks in all circumstances. Can God possibly mean that? Yes…

Joy is not happiness. Happiness is a feeling you have when things are going well. Joy is a fruit of the Spirit and it is not dependant on circumstances. The most confusing thing about people who know the Lord is their supernatural ability to praise through the worst of situations. The world looks at that and says “Is that person honestly using their last breath to praise the Lord? Their God is not saving them and yet they praise.” The world stares at that in wonder, shock and sometimes disgust. They don’t get it. And it’s not something you can “get” if you don’t have the Holy Spirit living inside of you. We all know the story of Job, a righteous man who lost everything – his possessions, his children, his health. The world responds to those circumstances like Job’s wife did: “Just curse God and die.” The world says “Wake up buddy, your life sucks and your God is not coming.” But the Spirit living inside of a true believer responds like Job did: “Though you slay me, YET will I praise you!” Like Shadrach, Mishack and Abednigo who were put into the fiery furnace for their faith and said “My God is able to save me, BUT EVEN IF HE DOESN’T, I will not bow down to your God.”

I have so many examples of people I know personally who have passed through the fiery furnace and kept their joy. The bible says that the kingdom of God is made up of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. That’s the kingdom of God so it cannot be shaken. Where the kingdom of God is, you will see righteousness, peace and joy, even if it is out of place in its surroundings. No-one can not conjure it up in the flesh. It is supernatural and it can not be shaken. I look at Jeremy Camp who married his young bride who had cancer, full of faith that God was going to heal her. I will never forget the video I saw of her thin and sick and unable to get off the couch and using all the strength she had to raise her arms to praise the Lord. She died shortly after that, but that image of her is stuck in many minds around the world.

The bible says believers are salt and light, and there is never a time when that light shines brighter than when they are suffering. Everybody understands a person who is happy when things are going well. Nobody understands a person who shines joy and sings praises when everything is being stripped from them. Our greatest opportunities to shine for Christ come when we don’t understand… Because when earthy understanding ends, supernatural peace and faith begin…

“And the peace of God which TRANSCENDS all understanding will guard yours hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 4v7)

Nothing but the blood

I need to write about my God today. I have mixed emotions about everything else so I come back to the rock. The rest is sand and it can’t be trusted. It moves around with the wind and changes everyday. But not God. He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. The Alpha and the Omega. He doesn’t change like shifting shadows. And He can be trusted.

On my way to work this morning, Nick and I were quiet because our minds were full and spilling out our thoughts at that stage wouldn’t have helped. We were deep in our own minds and probably both praying. Then God used Gareth Cliff to speak to us. I laugh as I write this because people doubt the sovereignty of God, and here God uses South Africa’s best known atheist to speak to us. Somebody who denies God often was used by the God he denies. The irony was amazing to me.

We have had miracle after miracle happen recently. It’s the kind of miracle that happens when you need to cross a raging river by walking on the rocks, but there is only one rock at a time for you to stand on. As you step off that rock into the torrent, the next rock appears from under the water and you say “Phew. If that rock didn’t appear, I would’ve drowned in these rapids.” There are two ways of looking at these kinds of miracles. You can either be in awe of God that even the rocks obey Him as He raises them up under your feet just before you fall and drown. Or you can be angry. Why is there no bridge? Why must every step I take be so frightening. Why must my veins be pumping with adrenalin everyday because of the fear of my next step when others are driving across this torrent on a beautiful well-lit, engineer-designed bridge.

First off, you need to realise that the bridge you see others crossing is an illusion set up to trip you up by the enemy. Yes, we have an enemy. The Bible says he prowls around like a lion seeking whom he may devour. His native tongue is lying. You can be sure that every time he whispers anything in your ear, it’s a lie because that’s the only language he speaks. The Bible says he seeks only 3 things - to steal from you, to kill you and to destroy you. You can’t forget about him. He wants your faith, he wants your hope and ultimately he wants your soul and he’ll do anything to get it using his most powerful tool - lies. That beautiful bridge you think others are walking on is a lie. Everyone has their own set of stepping stones across the torrent. Many fall and are carried away, but the just shall live by faith! Come on! I want to shout it out like Braveheart “The juuusssttt shall livvvee byyy FAITH!”

As born again believers, we have two choices everyday – Am I going to live today in faith or in fear? Only two choices. You are living by one of them whether you realise it or not. You can recognise fear in the fact that you try and retain control over everything because you don’t really trust God with it. The words of fear are “God, I’ll just hang onto this one because I think I know better what needs to happen here than you do. You can have the unimportant stuff. This is too important to trust you with.” And you recognise faith with the words “I am not my own. I trust you. Not my will, but yours."

Faith can only come when the gospel is deeply rooted in your heart. The gospel is not just necessary for justification and then we leave it behind. No! It is the gospel that justifies and it is the gospel that sanctifies. You don’t say to a new born again believer “Ok, you have heard the Gospel, you have accepted Jesus, you are now justified by your faith. The cross has done its work, let’s move on! Now we teach you how you are supposed to live according to the bible.” No! The Bible says that the Gospel is the POWER OF GOD UNTO SALVATION.” In other words it is the only power that takes us to our salvation.

What is salvation? Many will say salvation happens the moment you are born again but salvation is far more all encompassing than that moment. According to the word of God it is

1)      Righteousness (justification)

2)      Sanctification (more of Christ in your life and less of you) and

3)      Redemption (being raised up on that last day.

Salvation consists of all three of these things. So if the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation that means the gospel is required every single step of the way in our journey. We need to constantly be reminded of the cross, of the lamb who was slain before the foundation of the worth, of the power of the blood sacrifice that was made on our behalf and of the fact that we are made righteous because of what Christ did that day at Calvary. We are righteous because of Him. From that place of constant awe at the gospel comes the power unto salvation, which includes righteousness, sanctification and redemption.

Something hit me like a ton of bricks last night when I was thinking about these things and talking to some friends. The power for change is in the cross. No amount of teaching will bring the power required for change, it doesn’t matter how brilliant a teacher you are. All teaching should start with “This is what Christ did. Because of what He did, you are justified by the pure and powerful blood of the lamb and you are made righteousness. Your sin is therefore not counted against you. Can you believe such grace? THEREFORE… (and the teaching about what the bible says about holy living should start).” Most preaching today around the world starts after the THEREFORE and leaves the first part out… The gospel is used once off for salvation and then the teaching and preaching is separate from the gospel. This is not what the bible teaches. The gospel is to be front centre everytime we meet anywhere in his name. It is the starting point and the ending point. In between, the bible teaching happens but it happens on top of the foundation of the gospel. So the gospel is actually the middle point as well.

Once you are a born again believer, the gospel never gets old. It has the power to grip your heart anytime of the day and no matter how often you hear it. Never will a born again believer say “Oh no, is this preacher talking about the cross again (sigh)?” If they do, then I have to doubt whether they are in fact born again. The gospel unlike anything else in this world grows in power in our heart the more we hear it, it does not lose its power because of “over-use.” Never, as preachers, should we think “My preach was about the gospel last week, so I can’t go with that subject again. I need fresh material. No, we preach the gospel every week. Not as an add on at the end of the preach aimed at justification of non-believers, but as the power unto salvation which includes the sanctification of the believers who are sitting there.

Now that I have finished writing this, I have quickly googled to see if someone else has said it better than me and I found good old Spurgeon. Many, many years ago...There is nothing new under the sun – just a constant enemy who knows where the power lies and will do anything to avert the eyes of the church off the cross and onto ‘christian living’.

“Leave Christ out of the preaching and you shall do nothing. Only advertize it all over London, Mr. Baker, that you are making bread without flour; put it in every paper, “Bread without flour” and you may soon shut up your shop, for your customers will hurry off to other tradesmen. . . . A sermon without Christ as its beginning, middle, and end is a mistake in conception and a crime in execution. However grand the language it will be merely much-ado-about-nothing if Christ be not there. And I mean by Christ not merely his example and the ethical precepts of his teaching, but his atoning blood, his wondrous satisfaction made for human sin, and the grand doctrine of “believe and live.”