Habakkuk 3:17-18
Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.
Hey gang! Welcome back! Did you all enjoy establishing a new understanding and appreciation for LOVE, God's way after reading last week's post? I really hope that you're doing your homework and setting personal goals geared towards maintaining this particular fruit. I promise you if you do, you will enjoy where your love walk takes you.
One of the main habits I'm keeping for myself is seeking that kind of love from others that quenches some fear in me. I mentioned the story Sarah Jakes Roberts shared about how God used her now husband to speak to her fears and how this broke down an area of my thinking as it pertains to love.
Because God has been so insistent on abolishing all remnants of fear in me, one of the signs that I'm encountering real love from another person will be if they are reaffirming the attention He is spending on ensuring that I'm not harassed by any fear whatsoever.
And I plan to exude this same kind of energy towards others. The fuel of my love walk will be chasing down the fears that stifles spiritual freedom in others.
It's probably going to be this way with me, forever.
Well, the foundation has been set. We can now proceed to the next fruit of the spirit.
JOY to the world!
Y'all want to know what's funny? Facebook memories reminded me a couple of days ago that in 2013, I was super geeked to teach my Sunday school babies a lesson about the fruit of the spirit. Haha! Ain't that something?
I don't remember the specific lesson plan but I do remember bringing actual fruit to the class. A lot of fruit! And them babies smashed! They were so happy. The clean up was horrific yet I was all smiles and overwhelmed with joy to be able to feed my babies and FEED my babies.
Catch that!
Anyway, I believe it was three years ago I was having lunch with a gentleman going over some kind of community project, and I don't know what happened to shift the conversation but he said, "Tanzy you're a beautiful woman. But your eyes are sad."
If I were supposed to be offended, I couldn't be because I knew what he saw. It was almost like I was able to see me from his perspective. The fact that he said it with compassion and empathy made it also harder to cop defense. Once again, I knew exactly what he was seeing.
Have you ever experienced a devastation that strangled the happiness out of you? Have you ever had a series of soul crushing situations change your countenance so much so others were able to pick up on it?
Sometimes life has a way of doing that to you. One minute you're out here living your best life and then something happens in the next to have you feeling like you've been exiled to the darkest corner of your soul. All the while you're forced to keep going on with your life pretending as if everything is fine and dandy.
Have you ever been one, "Hey, how are you feeling," away from bursting into tears? They say the eyes are the window to the soul. I believe it. I've seen this in others because I've been there myself.
Hear me, as long as we're breathing we're never going to have the luxury of living a life without it showing its backside from time to time. Meaning, there will come times where we will catch a few upper cuts to the gut. However, I am writing this to tell you that there is a place in God where even if you're facing a season of unhappiness, you can still find joy!
I knew that taking on the task of going in depth with the fruit of the spirit, that doing so for some of these beautiful keynotes of God, would be more of a challenge to explain than others.
The joy fruit will be one of them. So I won't try to explain it too much. As it is one that has to be experienced first hand rather than explained.
What I want to do is massage your heart and get you groomed to receive the joy of God.
First, I need you to know that joy is not predicated on external circumstances. Where happiness is relative, joy is not. Happiness is sparked from the outside.
Joy radiates from within. Where happiness may be a state of the mind.
Joy is a state of the soul.
Nehemiah 8:10b
This day is holy to God. Don’t feel bad. The joy of God is your strength!
In the 8th chapter of Nehemiah, we are met with a large group of people who were once displaced and exiled. But by this time Nehemiah had rebuilt the wall of Jerusalem and the people were back together again and settled in their towns.
One day, they gathered at the town square and asked Ezra to bring out the book of the Law of Moses that God had commanded Israel.
Ezra stood out there from the crack of dawn till noon reading the law to the people. He had other men help explain the revelations so the people could understand. Then he broke out and begin to praise God. The people fell into a deep worship and begin to weep.
This is when Nehemiah reassured them that this day was holy and to go celebrate and share some of the preparations of their feasts, to the poor. He told them not to feel bad and that the joy of the Lord was their strength.
In Greek, the word joy in this context means GLADNESS.
It's safe to surmise that the joy of God is merely His gladness which therefore is translated within anyone who believes in Him as strength!
Sounds far more greater than happiness doesn't it?
Notice that I shared how the people fell into worshipful weeping which followed them receiving a better understanding of the revelations of Moses and then triggered Nehemiah's response. I would like to believe that the place of joy is found after being brought into a new understanding of who we are in God and who God is to us.
Listen, joy PROCEEDS revelation!
Here's why joy is something that can't easily be confiscated by a shift in seasons like happiness can. Joy is synced to what's eternal. Now if one's revelation of God is cloudy and unclear, then joy will not be present.
Matter of fact, joy can't present itself with a questionable revelation of God. Right now, I'm afraid that many believers know happiness but only few know joy because only few have sought God to get close enough to Him to receive a better view of who He is.
Listen, it's not something that's going to come from church shouting.
I'm just saying.
I'm reminded of a segment in a documentary I saw at the movies in April called,
Kingdom Men Rising by Dr. Tony Evans.
I don't want to give away the entire story but one of the gentlemen who'd been interviewed for the film had experienced what many would consider as a life altering tragedy.
Yet in the very midst of this moment where he had a right to break down and give up, he broke out into worshipful praise.
He cupped his broken heart and begin to sing a song to God and allowed the joy of the Lord to be his strength.
Y'all should know me by now, this crybaby in denial wept in that dark theater!
No lies!
I have to and I must add, that joy is most often reserved as a response to a night season.
The bible says in Psalm 30:5b, that weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning.
One of my favorite scriptures by the way.
So here we have it folks, the Israelites were exiled for a moment, then brought out to catch a revelation of God and told to rejoice! David the lyricist of the book of Psalms was chased out of his kingdom by his enemies and forced to ride the pendulum of his mood swings, to catch a revelation of God too, resulting in him penning that popular 30th hymn.
And lastly as we direct our attention to the focus scripture for this post, although I can go on, Prophet Habakkuk, who had complaints for days in chapter 1 and 2 of his book, must have caught a revelation of God as well.
Enough so, he ceased his complaints and lifted up a prayer in chapter 3 instead. Acknowledging who he saw God as, in comparison to what he lacked and ended the prayer with worshipful praise.
In all these instances the people of God found the joy of God, not from someplace outside of themselves but from someplace deep within.
Once, they looked up to Him.
Ah!
This is the best I can do with this fruit. I'm literally going to leave it right here.
My prayer for you in this hour though, is that you be brought into a higher and more deeper understanding of who God is. I pray that this revelation be so clear and so heavy that it causes you to break out into your own worshipful praise which will act as the key to open the treasure chest of joy God has designated for YOU.
That way, when people encounter you, they'll know the joy of the Lord is your strength.
Hey gang! Welcome back! Did you all enjoy establishing a new understanding and appreciation for LOVE, God's way after reading last week's post? I really hope that you're doing your homework and setting personal goals geared towards maintaining this particular fruit. I promise you if you do, you will enjoy where your love walk takes you.
One of the main habits I'm keeping for myself is seeking that kind of love from others that quenches some fear in me. I mentioned the story Sarah Jakes Roberts shared about how God used her now husband to speak to her fears and how this broke down an area of my thinking as it pertains to love.
Because God has been so insistent on abolishing all remnants of fear in me, one of the signs that I'm encountering real love from another person will be if they are reaffirming the attention He is spending on ensuring that I'm not harassed by any fear whatsoever.
And I plan to exude this same kind of energy towards others. The fuel of my love walk will be chasing down the fears that stifles spiritual freedom in others.
It's probably going to be this way with me, forever.
Well, the foundation has been set. We can now proceed to the next fruit of the spirit.
JOY to the world!
Y'all want to know what's funny? Facebook memories reminded me a couple of days ago that in 2013, I was super geeked to teach my Sunday school babies a lesson about the fruit of the spirit. Haha! Ain't that something?
I don't remember the specific lesson plan but I do remember bringing actual fruit to the class. A lot of fruit! And them babies smashed! They were so happy. The clean up was horrific yet I was all smiles and overwhelmed with joy to be able to feed my babies and FEED my babies.
Catch that!
Anyway, I believe it was three years ago I was having lunch with a gentleman going over some kind of community project, and I don't know what happened to shift the conversation but he said, "Tanzy you're a beautiful woman. But your eyes are sad."
If I were supposed to be offended, I couldn't be because I knew what he saw. It was almost like I was able to see me from his perspective. The fact that he said it with compassion and empathy made it also harder to cop defense. Once again, I knew exactly what he was seeing.
Have you ever experienced a devastation that strangled the happiness out of you? Have you ever had a series of soul crushing situations change your countenance so much so others were able to pick up on it?
Sometimes life has a way of doing that to you. One minute you're out here living your best life and then something happens in the next to have you feeling like you've been exiled to the darkest corner of your soul. All the while you're forced to keep going on with your life pretending as if everything is fine and dandy.
Have you ever been one, "Hey, how are you feeling," away from bursting into tears? They say the eyes are the window to the soul. I believe it. I've seen this in others because I've been there myself.
Hear me, as long as we're breathing we're never going to have the luxury of living a life without it showing its backside from time to time. Meaning, there will come times where we will catch a few upper cuts to the gut. However, I am writing this to tell you that there is a place in God where even if you're facing a season of unhappiness, you can still find joy!
I knew that taking on the task of going in depth with the fruit of the spirit, that doing so for some of these beautiful keynotes of God, would be more of a challenge to explain than others.
The joy fruit will be one of them. So I won't try to explain it too much. As it is one that has to be experienced first hand rather than explained.
What I want to do is massage your heart and get you groomed to receive the joy of God.
First, I need you to know that joy is not predicated on external circumstances. Where happiness is relative, joy is not. Happiness is sparked from the outside.
Joy radiates from within. Where happiness may be a state of the mind.
Joy is a state of the soul.
Nehemiah 8:10b
This day is holy to God. Don’t feel bad. The joy of God is your strength!
In the 8th chapter of Nehemiah, we are met with a large group of people who were once displaced and exiled. But by this time Nehemiah had rebuilt the wall of Jerusalem and the people were back together again and settled in their towns.
One day, they gathered at the town square and asked Ezra to bring out the book of the Law of Moses that God had commanded Israel.
Ezra stood out there from the crack of dawn till noon reading the law to the people. He had other men help explain the revelations so the people could understand. Then he broke out and begin to praise God. The people fell into a deep worship and begin to weep.
This is when Nehemiah reassured them that this day was holy and to go celebrate and share some of the preparations of their feasts, to the poor. He told them not to feel bad and that the joy of the Lord was their strength.
In Greek, the word joy in this context means GLADNESS.
It's safe to surmise that the joy of God is merely His gladness which therefore is translated within anyone who believes in Him as strength!
Sounds far more greater than happiness doesn't it?
Notice that I shared how the people fell into worshipful weeping which followed them receiving a better understanding of the revelations of Moses and then triggered Nehemiah's response. I would like to believe that the place of joy is found after being brought into a new understanding of who we are in God and who God is to us.
Listen, joy PROCEEDS revelation!
Here's why joy is something that can't easily be confiscated by a shift in seasons like happiness can. Joy is synced to what's eternal. Now if one's revelation of God is cloudy and unclear, then joy will not be present.
Matter of fact, joy can't present itself with a questionable revelation of God. Right now, I'm afraid that many believers know happiness but only few know joy because only few have sought God to get close enough to Him to receive a better view of who He is.
Listen, it's not something that's going to come from church shouting.
I'm just saying.
I'm reminded of a segment in a documentary I saw at the movies in April called,
Kingdom Men Rising by Dr. Tony Evans.
I don't want to give away the entire story but one of the gentlemen who'd been interviewed for the film had experienced what many would consider as a life altering tragedy.
Yet in the very midst of this moment where he had a right to break down and give up, he broke out into worshipful praise.
He cupped his broken heart and begin to sing a song to God and allowed the joy of the Lord to be his strength.
Y'all should know me by now, this crybaby in denial wept in that dark theater!
No lies!
I have to and I must add, that joy is most often reserved as a response to a night season.
The bible says in Psalm 30:5b, that weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning.
One of my favorite scriptures by the way.
So here we have it folks, the Israelites were exiled for a moment, then brought out to catch a revelation of God and told to rejoice! David the lyricist of the book of Psalms was chased out of his kingdom by his enemies and forced to ride the pendulum of his mood swings, to catch a revelation of God too, resulting in him penning that popular 30th hymn.
And lastly as we direct our attention to the focus scripture for this post, although I can go on, Prophet Habakkuk, who had complaints for days in chapter 1 and 2 of his book, must have caught a revelation of God as well.
Enough so, he ceased his complaints and lifted up a prayer in chapter 3 instead. Acknowledging who he saw God as, in comparison to what he lacked and ended the prayer with worshipful praise.
In all these instances the people of God found the joy of God, not from someplace outside of themselves but from someplace deep within.
Once, they looked up to Him.
Ah!
This is the best I can do with this fruit. I'm literally going to leave it right here.
My prayer for you in this hour though, is that you be brought into a higher and more deeper understanding of who God is. I pray that this revelation be so clear and so heavy that it causes you to break out into your own worshipful praise which will act as the key to open the treasure chest of joy God has designated for YOU.
That way, when people encounter you, they'll know the joy of the Lord is your strength.
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