No one can steal your joy because it is yours to manage. God gave it to you, so be a good steward of the joy of the Lord. Use that joy! It is your strength! One of the most flagrant mistakes you can make is to assign the strength of your joy to someone else! NO! You manage your joy!

Blessing And Responsibility

It may come as quite a shock to some, but God gives gracious gifts to everyone. But unlike some who bestow gifts, God expects something in return. When He gives to us, He expects us to do something with what He has given. Salvation, anointing, joy, peace, victory, etc. In fact, every great feat of faith is the result of God’s supply! He gives us the equipment to do great things for His glory, but He leaves it to us to complete the work of our Own salvation with fear and trembling. That means reverential awe!

NOT THE LEAST FEARFUL

The Bible is filled with stories of unbelievable feats of courage, faith, and spiritual stamina. One thing I’ve realized after five decades of telling those stories is that God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things.

People who accomplish the most astounding things for God’s glory aren’t the ones who feel the least fear, but quite the contrary, they deal with the most intense fear. Their secret? They have learned how to channel that emotional energy out of a negative conductor into a positive conductor. In other words, they know the secret of redirecting the energy of not knowing into a positive conductor of faith and spiritual understanding that brings assurance and trust in God for a favorable outcome. They take a step of trust, and leave the rest up to Him.

With this strategy, we recognize the presence of fear, but we don’t allow that fear to disable our guiding vision of personal destiny. We are victorious in our battles because we draw strength from a power and force given by our Heavenly Father. He always causes us to triumph! And with God’s help, we will not be overcome and overwhelmed by paralyzing fear and negative feelings of gloom and despair.

NOT THE LEAST FIT

Before you were born-before any of your defects were apparent to you-they were absolutely apparent to God. That didn’t stop Him from calling your name and setting you apart. He placed you on the earth at a certain time for a pre-decided purpose.

“The people who accomplish the most astounding things for God’s glory aren’t the people who feel the most physically fit, or mentally astute. Often they’re the ones who are the least fit to do battle with the adversary.

But instead of letting that defect or disadvantage in their physical prowess cause them to draw back, they are undaunted, and go forward into the conflict. Some may lack experience in doing battle, but that just increases their capacity for faith. They act on the part of God’s direction that encourages them to lean not to their own understanding, but cast the burden of facing a difficult situation upon the strong shoulders of our Savior and trust HIM to win for you. He never fails.

Psalms 118:24
This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.

Who made it? God. What did He do with it? Gave it to us! What is it called? Life. How are we going to manage it? Rejoice and be glad!

Joshua 4:15-20
15. And the LORD spake unto Joshua, saying,
16. Command the priests that bear the ark of the testimony, that they come up out of Jordan.
17. Joshua therefore commanded the priests, saying, Come ye up out of Jordan.
18. And it came to pass, when the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD were come up out of the midst of Jordan, and the soles of the priests’ feet were lifted up unto the dry land, that the waters of Jordan returned unto their place, and flowed over all his banks, as they did before.
19. And the people came up out of Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and encamped in Gilgal, in the east border of Jericho.
20. And those twelve stones, which they took out of Jordan, did Joshua pitch in Gilgal.

This scripture is appropriate for our church, and for each individual in this room. The people of God had just crossed over Jordan to possess their promise. They were exhilarated and exhausted at the same time. The responsibility now falls upon their shoulders to take positive action to own and manage what God has given to them.

REJOICE IN WHAT GOD HAS GIVEN YOU!

No one can steal your joy because it is yours to manage. God gave it to you, so be a good steward of the joy of the Lord. Use that joy! It is your strength! One of the most flagrant mistakes you can make is to assign the strength of your joy to someone else! NO! You manage your joy!

I Thessalonians 5:16
Rejoice evermore!

Pastors need to understand that your calling is not to make people happy. You will lead a miserable life, if you prepare your sermons and plan your work just to make people happy with you. In fact, the Apostle Paul said”

Galatians 1:10
For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.

Don’t ever let your rejoicing ride upon the coattails of any individual, or your joy determined by the critical eye of a puffed up scorner; but let your rejoicing come from a glad heart of worship to the One Who is worthy!

You see, when the children of Israel crossed over Jordan, they were now at a designated place that God called home for them. They were no longer wilderness wanderers, they now were at home! That required a different mindset!

The manna that had been provided in the wilderness, ceased! Now they had to learn how to prepare, plant, gather, store. Shoes that didn’t wear out, and clothes that didn’t become tattered and torn are history. Now its time to assume responsibility and create an environment of sustaining shelter, caring for animals, and establish family and home. Many of the things they just took for granted, now required planning and responsibility.

Manage Your Miracle!

Many of you sitting here today are like these children of Israel. They are still alive because of God’s miraculous intervention for them. So you might say, God has given them a miracle, and now its up to them to responsibly manage their miracle. How powerful is that! What are you gonna do with the miracle God gave you?

Anybody here that God has brought you through something? Oh, when you’ve been through something, and come out of it, and you realize that it’s a new day, and there’s a new beginning! An old song says “I’ve crossed over Jordan to Canaan’s fair land, and this is like Heaven to me.

Well, I know what we mean, but we didn’t cross OVER Jordan, we passed THRU Jordan! Like so many of us, we are praying for God to just lift us over the trial, but the children of Israel passed through the waters. God made a way for them to walk through the water! That was the miracle!

When Rachael was a child, she would come out the door to discover deep snow, and she would look at me and say, “Carry me daddy!” Other times the pavement would be hot and she’d say, “Pick me up daddy!” And yes, sometimes our Heavenly Father carries us over a difficulty or hurtful situation. But do you know when God is most glortified? When we like the priests stand in the middle of the Jordan!

That’s the hardest part. I know God knows the end from the beginning but I don’t. That’s why it is so important for the strong to support the weak.

God needs some mature, strong, experienced, saints of God to stand in the middle of tough time so that other people can get through it! In verse 10 you will find that the children of Israell hurried through the Jordan, but the priests stood in the middle till the others passed over.

In the middle you don’t have the excitement of the beginning, nor the celebration of the end, but what happens in the middle is where the attack is so fierce and the need is so dire, and the challenge is so tough. It takes seasoned veterans to stand!

1 Peter 1:6-8
6. Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations
7. That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:
8, Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory

What happened from Joshua 4 to Judges 2:10?

Judges 2:10
10. And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers: and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the LORD, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel.

They stopped telling the story. You lose your joy when you lose your testimony!