Shout for joy
June 17th, 2008 — Titto Thomas
by Titto Thomas
Sidharth has written such a wonderful article on Joy, so I don’t want to dwell too much on it. I just want to share a few things that the Lord has been teaching me recently.
Kingdom Joy
Romans 14:17 tells us “for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”
One of the characteristics of God’s reign in our lives is Joy. For where the King reigns, there is great Joy, exceeding Joy rather. Also when we share to others joy must be the prime motive. This makes Joy so important in our lives.
Joy your strength
Nehemiah 8:10 Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto him for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye grieved; for the joy of Jehovah is your strength.
We are all familiar with these verses but few of us have ever read this scripture in context. What was happening here was that THE LAW OF GOD, which they were not fully aware of, had been found and when it was read out to them, they suddenly realized that they had not been living according to it. It was a time to weep and repent, but it is here that we encounter this verse- “DO NOT WEEP YET, THE JOY OF THE LORD IS OUR STRENGTH”. See, even to repent they needed to be filled with Joy, because it is here that we get the strength (even) to repent in a Godly way! To walk in a Godly way, we need to first learn to have diligence in being filled with Joy.
How do I find Joy?
Most Christians are so devoid of Joy in their lives. There is a smell of Death around them! Should this be so? No! We all like to answer but in our minds one question persists… How do I find JOY? God shows us the answer in the book of Isaiah. Isaiah 54:1 tells the barren woman to shout for joy. Now bareness was a curse and yet God tells them to shout out for joy in that condition. As we read on we find God saying “I will enlarge your tents, your descendants will possess the nations”. Remember, you are talking about a barren woman!!
There is a point when we look to God, beyond our circumstances, and shout out in praise and Joy to him, and when we are willing to do that, we see the hand of God! What amazes me is the fact that God could have said “I will give you a child!” But he says to the person shouting out in their point of curse “Enlarge your tents”. To me that means lots and lots of descendants!
But what is the Key to this joy… we find it in the first verse of the previous chapter (53). “WHO HAS BELIEVED OUR REPORT?” The answer to our lack of Joy is pretty simple: Just believe the report. Now what report am I talking about? The report that Jesus has prospered (Isaiah 52:13). That means He is now your Lord, your master and… Boy, I could go on… With respect to you, it means that if you are His, He will look after you!!!!!! You might be going through the darkest period of your life or maybe you heard the worst report of your life, BUT it still cannot supersede the fact that the report of Jesus transcends any other report. AMEN!!
Where most people go wrong here, is that they try to believe all this with the interior motive that if they rejoice in that joy, it is somehow a fetish to see the supernatural happening in their life. But, my friends, true worship has to do with the fact that even if you and your family do not have a house to live in and haven’t eaten a morsel for days, The KING RULES. AND NOTHING CAN DENY THAT FACT. Great joy is available to all who can believe this and the implications it carries.
My experience
I have so much to tell you on these lines, and I was about to share something in particular. But something happened just a few weeks ago and I want to share this. I was away on a company training and, having done fantastically well, at the end, I made a huge mess of it, to the point of making a fool of myself. After I had finished the final exam and I got out all I was saying to myself was “Titto what did you do? You were in such a good position and you blew it… I can’t believe that I blew it like this!” As I continued fretting about it and feeling depressed, the Good Lord just reminded me of this message (which was half done at that point) and I just looked back and said “God is reigning on the throne and I have no time to meditate on this filth. I’ve got work to do. I need to join with the angels and shout out ‘HOLY, HOLY, HOLY are you LORD!’ I need to shout out in my bareness”. No I am not looking for the reciprocations in my life, but just dwelling in peace and joy over the fact that I am His.
My friends, are you in the middle of a crisis? Why is there no joy in our lives? The answer is simple: We look to our circumstances and situations for it. But God says, “believe in my report” (Isa 53). Because only in this will we ever find a reason to be joyful. You might be in the middle of a curse, maybe a sickness or a financial disaster, maybe even barrenness like it says in Isa 54, but the Lord is telling you this one thing: Start shouting out with Joy in this place and you will see the salvation of the Lord!
Tell the Lord, “LORD I don’t look to my surrounding, friends, job, money or anything else for my Joy. I repent I have been looking elsewhere and I have been disappointed, but Lord, your word says ‘believe in the report which you have given’. And now I choose to believe in your report which is above everything else AMEN!”
