The Joy of Heaven in the Day of Battle

I have a real knowing from the Holy Spirit that now is the time for the believer, God’s people everywhere, to aggressively, to tenaciously focus on the Lord amid all trouble - internal and external. It is an absolute imperative. No matter how wearisome or prolonged that trial may be. 

The reality is that ‘His joy is the believers strength’ (Nehemiah 8:10) and that is no matter the circumstance. There can be no excuse. His divine and equipping strength is available to all.

Jesus imparted this empowering joy to every believer at the new birth. Thus the Christian is equipped even for the fiery trial. It is why James could say, to consider it pure joy while facing trials, because he knew it produced spiritual maturity, whereby the believer resulted in lacking nothing. (see John 15:11; James 1:2-4)

This joy of heaven experience, this spiritual maturity, is an evidence that the Christian is indeed a true follower of Christ.

However, the onus is on the believer to act in order to receive. 

Many Christians today passively wait for God to act. They treat Him like some kind of a genie or magician. They sit motionless, expecting Him to serve them like a waiter would their favourite dish. Still others put the responsibility onto pastors and preachers to do the work for them.

But let us recall Jacob. This man took it upon himself to wrestle with God. Jacob fought so forcefully to receive the blessing that his body was injured in the struggle. To walk in this joy and indeed all the divine blessings of Christ, the believers flesh, their earthly nature, must suffer injury. In other words, the true Christian must surrender until they experience loss. They must decrease that Jesus may increase. They must offer their lives as a living sacrifice. This is what is holy and pleasing to God (see Genesis 32:22-3; John 3:30; Romans 12:1). 

It is why Jesus said only the violent take the Kingdom by force. By violent Jesus meant the tenacious, the forceful - the one who is eager in hot pursuit to seize, snatch, or obtain as if by robbery. 

Is today’s believer this enthusiastic to obtain the Kingdom with all its blessings? 

Only when they are, will the Kingdom become theirs. Only then will the believer begin to live and act just as Jesus did. 

The true Christian is thus delivered from the constraints and actions of this world and gloriously equipped with heaven to rescue lost sinners from hells unquenchable flame.  

Paul exhorts the believer to fix their thoughts on Jesus, to take their thoughts completely off themselves. This requires serious spiritual discipline. Sin predisposes the Christian to self-exaltation and therefore to self-pity when life doesn’t turn out the way they imagined. This focus on self is a contemptible quagmire luring the believer away from any true union with Jesus. 

Paul further writes, to meditate on, to think about, (to contemplate, to picture, to imagine) whatever is holy and edifying. (see Colossians 3:2; Philippians 4:8). Doing all this in the face of heavy trial and tribulation. 

When focusing on earthly things - living from the natural realm, it is impossible for the believer to set their gaze solely on Jesus. But when living in the glory of His divine presence all of heaven zooms perfectly into view. The Christian thus becomes hidden inside His dwelling in the day of trouble. Inside the Secret Place of the Most High covered with His feathers, protected from all fear. (see Psalm 27:5; 31:20; 91:1-2; 46:1. Meditate on each full chapter. Ask the Holy Spirit for a revelation of the Father).

The Father desires that the believer possess their land, a land occupied by giants, inhibiting access to the blessings. But the believer must wield not carnal weapons of warfare. Earthbound responses are useless in the struggle and only empower the demonic realm against them.

The Christians weapons are indeed mighty through God, for they bring down strongholds, they cast down negative imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God in the believers life. These divine weapons bring into captivity every thought and make the thought obedient to Christ. 

These Christ weapons imprison discouragement, anxiety, fear, hopelessness, unbelief and godless thinking. They inhibit them from continuously pervading the mind and the heart (see 2 Corinthians 10). Therefore freeing the believer to walk in the authority of Christ and to experience the complete joy of Jesus, thus also enthusing the body with physical strength, bringing wellbeing even to the bones. (see Proverbs 17:22)

This is available now to every believer during a time of extreme trial. But they must act with all determination.

Negative mindsets must be regularly cast down. Every strong thought holding power over them dictating how they feel, must be brought into captivity, into submission. These beliefs should be bound up and cast out of the mind - made to submit to Christ. New habits are thus free to form, the mind renewed (see Romans 12:2), and now predisposed to godly thinking rather than a worldly mindset.

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It is time. Today is the day to focus on the Lord. Today is the day to walk experientially in the joy given by Jesus to every believer in the face of every trial and to equip for the day of battle.