Enter into the Joy of My Father

"You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of joy above your fellows."  Psalm 46:7   This verse provides the key to a joy-filled life, which is our attitude toward obeying God (Be faithful in little) and completely rejecting anything that causes us to compromise what we know is right.  When this verse is quoted again in Hebrews 1, it is a description of Jesus' life, but it clearly also speaks of what the presence of the Lord desires to accomplish in us. Jesus asked why we say "Lord, Lord" and not do what He says.  Becoming a new creation means our life thoughts, emotions, and choices have also become new and are changed.     

Poor God!  He has to depend upon us to show the world what He is really like.  "He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake."  We choose righteousness to represent His name.  We are His light to the world.  Needless to say, we often fail, but that doesn't change the responsibility and that doesn't mean that we should quit desiring to be like Him.  It follows that we need His help to be a witness. Jesus promised, "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me."   Notice we have been given the power and we shall "be" witnesses.  

Jesus endured the cross, according to Hebrews 12, because of the joy set before Him.  I always suggest that the joy set before Him was you, being set free and made holy so you can share His glory forever.  We know Jesus was motivated to choose the Father's will over His own with the help of the Holy Spirit.  Hebrews 9:14 states "who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself with spot to God"   We have been given that same Holy Spirit, the same power that raised Christ from the dead gives life to our mortal body, which also leads us and guides into all truth.  Romans 8:13 further declares that by the power of the Holy Spirit we can put to death the deeds of the body.

You and I have our most important appointment of our existence yet to come.  Psalm 42 asks "when will I come and appear before God?"  What an incredible joy it will be to lay our crowns before Him and to hear "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your master."  He promises that we will not lose our reward for every action and choice, even something as simple as giving a child a glass of water.  Yes, each one of us will stand before God and give an account for every word, for every deed done in the body.  What a person sows he will surely reap. Therefore, be wise not foolish, and lay up your treasures in heaven by letting the Word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit direct your steps and the choices you make.  The time will most surely come, when you stand before God, and with joy overflowing, have every iota of your life reviewed and rewarded.

What an awesome and beyond imagination experience to stand pure and holy before God!  Let that joy motivate you to make wise choices, to love and do what is right and hate evil.  Ask the Holy Spirit to give you the same attitude and commitment toward doing what pleases God that Jesus demonstrated, and hating, completely despising, the evil deeds of the flesh.  God promises fullness of joy in His presence as you agree with Him and do His will.  You reflect the true light of the world, and He invites you to "enter into the joy of My Father."  

Apart From Me You Can Do Nothing

Nothing offends our flesh like the truth.  Yet when Jesus pointed out that "apart from Me you can do nothing" in John 15, He wasn't putting us down.  Rather, the purpose was to set us free from self-reliance so we could become fruitful uniting with Him.  Jesus also shares the resulting promise, "These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full."

Man was created to walk humbly with God.  Adam and Eve were given the ability and the commission to keep and maintain the garden, but as we all know, sin destroyed their harmony with God and their capability to rule righteously.  Sin produces death not life.

However, in God's infinite wisdom He sent Jesus to destroy the work of the enemy and restore the God-given position and role for which man was created.  This restoration comes because believers are now brought into an amazing new creation, called "in Christ" in the Scriptures.  As Galatians 2:20 declares, "I am crucified in Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me, and the life I now live is by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me."  The book of Ephesians further explains that in Christ is "every spiritual blessing" and that God "raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus."  Through Jesus, and in Jesus' righteousness, we have received His gift to rule as kings on the earth again.  

As the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 reveals the son of the virgin shall be called Emmanuel, God with us. Since man did not and could not obey the law to produce life, God chose to send Jesus to accomplish the necessary work of redemption, which opened the way for the Holy Spirit to produce an indwelling of God Himself in us.  In the awesome miracle of new creation or restoration, we become a temple of the Holy Spirit and God Himself personally and permanently dwells in us.  Through the infinite unity of the Godhead, John 14:23 reveals that if we love Him and obey His word, Jesus and the Father "will come and make our home with him."  We are meant to live in Christ and Christ in us, and through this glorious mystery have God in us.  

We, as kings and priests of God's kingdom, have been given authority and called to rule in this life on the earth (Romans 4:25).  However, fleshly wisdom and doing just what is right in our own eyes will only produce strife and every evil thing.  As the founding fathers of the United States sought to establish a government based on the principles of God's Word (In Isaiah 33 God is declared king, judge, and lawgiver, which represents the three branches of the new government.), George Washington rightly stated that it is "impossible to rule without God."  

Psalm 72 starts with an honest prayer request, "Give the king knowledge of Your way of judging, O God, and the spirit of Your righteousness." (Amp)  God's thoughts and ways are infinitely higher than man's ways and thoughts, so the only way we can "rule" is to have His ways of judging and His discernment of what is right.  It is likewise impossible to parent effectively, to make wise decisions, or to be a godly influence on other people without seeking His wisdom and discernment to know how to handle things in His way.  

Many people are shaken about what is going on in the world and are wondering what God is up to in the current situations.  At least two major things are indicated by the Scriptures.  First, as Jesus prayed in John 17:21, "that they may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me."  God plan, which will open the hearts of people in the world to believe, is to change the hearts of believers to be in unity. The good news is that Jesus' prayer is sure to be fulfilled and the world will stand in awe as Christians love one another.  Before the Spirit fell in Acts 2, the believers were of one heart and mind, so likewise this unity of beievers will be accompanied by a fresh anointing of the Spirit. Note the anointing promise in Psalm 133 when brothers dwell in unity.  

Secondly, the Spirit was given, as Jesus stated in Acts 1, to make us witnesses of Him to the ends of the earth.  Jesus has paid the price for all men to be saved from the consequences of sin and come to the loving knowledge of God.  He is worthy of His reward (Phillippians 2) for His obedient suffering unto death.  Believers are the light of the world and the salt of the earth that draws others to Jesus.

As the world is challenging Christians and seeking to remove God from the public sector, God is raising up a mighty army that refuses to obey man rather than God.  Notice in Acts 4 how the early Christians, after being threatened by the world to keep quiet about Jesus and His resurrection, cried out to the Holy Spirit to enable them to speak the Word of God with boldness.  God's reply not only refilled them but also shook the house!  So clearly, the second major work of the Spirit today is moving on believers to cry out to God for anointing to be bold witnesses of Jesus Christ.  God is seeking Christian witnesses who refuse to be intiminated but rather speak boldly about the Lord in word and deed.  

Jesus' purpose for declaring that apart from Him we could do nothing, as stated in John 15, is for us to abide in Him and let His word abide in us, that we might bear much fruit, prove to be His disciples, and glorify the Father.  The time has come when the Body of Christ must depend upon God for His ways,  stand in the gap for each other with greater intensity, and be a living epistle of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world.   Let God be magnified.