So,
have you ever felt like you were needing
"Strength".... Spiritual strength?....Physical strength?
I know I have....The SONG,
"The Joy of the Lord is My Strength"... comes to mind at the moment.
Perhaps you are familiar with it?
I know I have been in a place more times than I care to admit, where I have felt weak both spiritually and physically.
The word of the Lord tells us that .... the "Joy of the Lord is our strength."
Nehemiah 8:10
( Where the ever famous song is inspired)
Nehemiah said, "Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength."
What does that mean?
Does that mean that if we are happy in Jesus that we should feel strong in any given situation....both spiritually or physically?
Actually......as nice and "easy" as that would be....Uh.....no.... I do not see that in the word of God to be so.
But rather.......I read in Isaiah 58, the chapter where God himself speaks to Isaiah about what true fasting is all about, God also at the end of this chapter very pointedly says what it takes to obtain the "joy of the Lord" in your life.
13"If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath
and from doing as you please on my holy day,
if you call the Sabbath a delight
and the LORD's holy day honorable,
and if you honor it by not going your own way
and not doing as you please or speaking idle words,
14 then you will find your joy in the LORD,
and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land
and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob."
The mouth of the LORD has spoken.
If I may, I would like to stress, only because the Lord himself did first, the words highlighted in yellow. As they draw attention to "us" and "our will".
I grew up (the last 30+ years, my life as a child of God) thinking all this time that the "joy of the Lord" was simply something that came to me by way of Holy Spirit as I pondered on the love of God and the Grace of God and all the he has done for me; all that I have in and through God and his son Jesus.
As honorable as that sounds, that just isn't scriptural. To be honest, finding this out by way Holy Spirit revelation has been very liberating!
Why? (you might wonder) Simply because....for so many years I have TRIED and failed on many occasion, to obtain on different occasions, the JOY of the LORD and wondered what the heck was WRONG with me!
I have asked the Lord, "Where is my joy? I love you beyond even my comprehension and with a passion that has cost me so very much! Yet I can not seem to muster an ounce of joy at this time in my life when I need it most! WHY, Lord? I NEED STRENGTH...to carry on.....help me to carry on...to understand...please!"
Well, he did. He showed me this scripture. You may have noticed that I posted it just a few weeks ago and I have been studying it since.
The Sabbath was made for man.Going back to even the VERY beginning, God created the world in six days on the seventh day he rested. I am not going to go into a long dissertation on the Sabbath. However I will say a few things that I think will make my point...God is LOVE...everything he does he does out of love for us.
God made a point from the very beginning, knowing we would need help in this area (the area of of us needing rest), to put in place for us one day out of seven for us to rest. He did so in such a manner so as not to take away our free will; as he will never invade our free will; but instead offered us an insurmountable joy and blessing if we obeyed him. (this is the key here....to the "Joy of the Lord". vrs 14)
Like all of his laws if we obey we will reap blessings we cannot contain.
If we rebel and do things our own way we will also reap according.
So many of us have been brain washed through the centuries, unfortunately, that the laws of God are restrictive and bad and mean. When in reality they are completely the opposite
They are liberating, holy and created out of love by our loving Father.
When we follow them we find life and blessing abundant to follow us through out a thousand generations.
So are YOU tired?........Weary?..........Need some strength?
Take a day off.....set it aside, make it Holy. Rest in the Lord.
Let the Joy of the Lord over come you and Be Your Strength!
****
