The Word is living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword. Where we need it, it cuts away and circumcises our hearts. Where we need it, it feeds the inner man with that which will make us more than conquerors. It must be written on the tablets of our hearts, so that we might not sin against the Lord, but rather that we might walk wholly in all that He has for us.
I Peter 1:5–8 speaks of those who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory.
This passage is speaking of the great joy that people can have, even when they are suffering under difficult trials and testings. Peter said, “For a little time you will go through the trial of your faith just as gold is tried in the fire. What you are facing is difficult, yet you are rejoicing with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” How can you face the problems, the testings, the cross experience in your life, or the disciplines of the Spirit, one after another, and still be expected to rejoice? Deuteronomy 16:15 says, “Be altogether joyful.” That was the command for the Feast of Tabernacles. How can people have joy when there are miserable circumstances in their lives and problems that they do not know how to solve? Pastors can feel the same way. The further they go and the more victory they receive, the more problems they have. The more the authority of the ministry rests upon them, the more responsibility the Lord gives to them.
God’s dealings upon your life may be devastating and completely shattering, but there is a way that you can come through them if you will reach up into what God is doing for you. Hebrews 12:2 says we are to run the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Remember that Christ faced His cross for you, but He did it with joy because He looked forward to the joy that was set before Him.
There is a way to enter into a great deal of joy in the Lord by anticipating tomorrow’s joy. In the days of your childhood, when you looked forward to your birthday or some other special occasion when you were going to receive presents, you probably enjoyed the days of anticipation as much or more than the day your presents were actually given to you. Afterwards, you looked around at all the ribbons and wrappings from the presents and realized it was all over. The presents were wonderful, but your anticipation of receiving them enabled you to endure the waiting while you were looking forward to that one special day.
Christ endured the cross, yet His focus was never on it. He despised the shame because He was looking ahead to the joy just over the hill that was set before Him. This became very real to Him. Faith must enter into tests and trials; you must believe that what you are going through will accomplish His purpose. Just beyond that test or trial there is joy inexpressible. The Apostle Peter said, “You are going through a lot of heaviness and many trials, but you are sustained by a joy unspeakable, inexpressible, and full of glory; the joy is there.” This Scripture is important to remember when you cannot keep your mind off of your difficult situations.
Are you anticipating something that will be hard for you to face, such as an unpaid bill or a problem you cannot solve? Maybe you have sought the Lord and asked for His will to be done; yet you do not know what to do, which way to turn, or what the will of the Lord is. What are you supposed to do when you do not know how to solve a problem? If you know that God’s hand is on the situation, do what Jesus did—look over the hill for the joy that is to come.
What you are going through is just one of five phases of a continuous cycle. First the Lord becomes real to you, and His Word enters your heart. Then your need becomes apparent to you. Next He deals deeply with you. After those dealings, His joy comes to you. Finally, He starts becoming real to you again, bringing you right back in the same pattern, repeating the cycle.
God chastens you so that you become a partaker of His holiness, but you do not receive it all at once. You receive just enough of His holiness to make you think, “This is marvelous! I am so happy, Lord.” Then He reveals Himself again, throwing you back into the same cycle. The dealings of the Lord remind us of an automatic washing machine. As you go through one cycle after another, you do not know whether you are in the spin-dry phase or whether you are being agitated during the wash cycle!
Most of the things that God does with people cannot be completed as quickly as they would like. It happens here a little, there a little; line upon line, precept upon precept (Isaiah 28:13). In that way God increases your capacity.
You become so hungry for God that you pour out your heart, praying for Him to meet you; and He does. At that time, you may be only a little half-pint container, but He fills you to the brim. Your spirit is flexible, and when you seek God He fills you to overflowing. Then you begin to stretch and expand, like a wineskin. After a while you again feel empty and you cry, “Fill me again, Lord!” And He fills you again. Now you realize that you are no longer a little half-pint; you are a whole pint! As you continue in the cycle, you keep growing. At no time should you embrace anything less than His fulness. Be filled with all the fulness of God (Ephesians 3:19). Instead of remaining a half-pint all your life, anticipate becoming a five-gallon jug! It is not enough to be filled to overflowing; your capacity for God must constantly increase. The same cycle repeats itself over and over again: God becomes very real to you, He starts dealing with you, and you become hungry for His Word, the work of the cross comes forth in your life, and He fills you with His joy. Before you know it, you are repeating that cycle again and again. But each time you have a greater capacity for Him.
As you keep anticipating more and more of the Lord, your ways of being filled with Him will change, and your ways of experiencing Him and knowing Him and practicing His presence will change. Your walk with God will change, but no matter what you are going through or what phase of the cycle you are in, you still can be joyful. You can be joyful because you are anticipating what is just over the hill. The joy of anticipation is as great as the joy of the victory itself.
You never keep a victory after the battle is won if you have not maintained it throughout the battle. You maintain that victory as you fight the battle. If someone comes against you, react by praising the Lord with perfect victory. You win the victory by manifesting the victory. At all times, you are to be more than a conqueror (Romans 8:37). At all times, you are to be altogether joyful (Deuteronomy 16:15). Be altogether joyful! Rejoice in the Lord. You cannot be a heavyhearted sad sack while praying for righteousness. Though it is true that righteousness comes by godly sorrow that works repentance (II Corinthians 7:10), you also need a joyful faith to believe that you are becoming righteous. Believe to be a righteous, holy person. It is good to feel sick of the old fleshly nature and the areas where you have been defeated, but that should not preclude the faith that looks up to God and says, “O Lord, I rejoice in You because I am going to be like You. It will be Your holiness, Your righteousness, that I experience. I am going to be different. I am going to be just like You!”
When you see yourself for what you really are, it produces a bit of despair, and you say, “Woe is me!” There is a scriptural solution for this problem in Isaiah 4:2–6. In that day the Branch of the Lord will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth will be the pride and the adornment of the survivors of Israel. And it will come about that he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy—everyone who is recorded for life in Jerusalem. When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and purged the bloodshed of Jerusalem from her midst, by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning, then the Lord will create over the whole area of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, even smoke, and the brightness of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory will be a canopy. And there will be a shelter to give shade from the heat by day, and refuge and protection from the storm and the rain.
Here again we see the cycle. The Lord reveals Himself to you; and in the light of His revelation to you, you see your own need. As you see your own need and cry out to God, He cleanses you so that He can reveal Himself to you in a greater glory. This cycle is repeated over and over and over again.
While you are having a revelation from the Lord, you will not only see Him; you will also see your own filthy garments. Joshua experienced this while standing before the angel of the Lord. After he saw his own filthy garments, the angel of the Lord clothed him in clean garments and placed upon him the glory and the promise of great things (Zechariah 3:1–10). The Lord deals with you in the same way. When you go through dealings, God’s will is in them; and as you experience them, He will meet you with unutterable joy. That joy will sustain you while you go through more dealings, which will again bring inexpressible joy.
A revelation of the Lord comes to those who have ears to hear it, eyes to see it, and hearts to experience it. If you cannot experience it, you are not ready for it. The Lord never gives you what you cannot handle. He says to the babes, as He said to the disciples when they were immature, “I have many things to tell you, but you are not able to bear them now” (John 16:12). After a time of putting His people through the dealings, He reveals more to them. It is surprising how attentive you become after the Lord brings you through a difficult time. A fear of the Lord is learned through the afflictions He puts you through.
Over every habitation in Zion, the glory of the Lord will be a canopy for protection. It will be there to give immunity from the things that could assault you, but first you must be purged. Before the pillar of fire can be over you, the purging fire has to go through you (Isaiah 4:2–6). It is a cycle that you face again and again. You know that you are a son of God if He is chastening you. He is chastening you so that you will become a partaker of His holiness, so that you will reach in to know Him and to walk with Him. The chastening by a natural father can be rather harsh. He may say, “As long as you have your feet under my table, you will do what I tell you to do! If the day ever comes that you stop obeying me, you can leave home and go your own way.” Young people submit to that ultimatum so that they can keep their feet under the table. Your Heavenly Father has a better plan. He chastens you so that your feet will always be under His table. He chastens you so that you will never be cast out. If He does not chasten you, then He is not treating you as a true son, but as an illegitimate one, for He scourges every son whom He receives (Hebrews 12:6). He wants you to fellowship with Him. He keeps driving you into a fresh appropriation of Himself.
While taking a shower, it is difficult to hold on to a bar of soap. If you squeeze it, up it goes! In the same manner, God puts the squeeze on you—not to destroy you, but just to cast your spirit higher.
Are there unbearable situations in your life? Do you feel that you do not have what it takes to withstand temptation? I Corinthians 10:13 says that God will not tempt you beyond what you are able to bear, but with the temptation He also will make a way to escape it. You cannot bear a temptation in yourself; therefore you ask the Lord for His grace, saying, “I cannot make it without You, Lord. Meet me!”
When your trial is over, it is like the receding of water after a river overflows its banks. A richness of God has been deposited during that flood, and then more of the Lord is seen in your life. There is more of His presence and more of His joy than ever before. The Lord gives you trials because He wants you to appropriate more of Himself in your life. He wants to become more to you. How else can He do it, except by bringing you to the place where you can no longer rely on your own self-sufficiency. Because you do not know all the answers and do not have the required strength, you cannot make it on your own. Then in your desperation you reach out to Him and say, “Lord, I just cannot make it by myself; I have to have more from You.” The Lord drives you deeper into yourself, but He does not subject you to an endurance contest to see how long you can stand on your own before you crack. He wants you to continually appropriate more of Himself, in order that there will be a great amount of joy in your heart, a great awareness of His presence, and a great anointing. Otherwise, you will end up being discouraged by His dealings.
Whenever the Lord is pushing and pressing so hard that you feel like quitting, just be thankful that He is putting you through testings. If you back off in discouragement, you are only stopping the cycle and the process that will lead you into the perfected ministry that God has for you. Remember—God chose you. God anointed you. God told you what to do. If that is what He wants, then stand right there and rejoice.
The pastor of a New Testament church today has yet to see a nice little church with no problems—one where everyone is congenial and compatible, where there are no problems with people relating to one another. In this hour, God is telling those ministers of His Word to bring forth His people, to bring forth His Kingdom, to bring forth the army of the Lord that will not break ranks nor thrust one another through (Joel 2:7–8). They will see eye to eye (Isaiah 52:8). But now instead of everyone seeing eye to eye, they seem to see everything in a different light. Instead of not breaking ranks, now it seems that everyone is marching in a different step. New recruits in the army of the Lord cannot even stand up to someone throwing marshmallows at them. But after the Lord puts them through a few testings, they can stand and battle the enemy.
Has the Lord led you and brought you far enough already, so that you are able to face problems today which you could not have faced six months ago? The problems you faced six months ago you probably could not have handled a year before that, because the problems become increasingly difficult in order to drive you more deeply into God. Be happy regardless; and do not wait for smaller problems. If your problems get smaller, you really have a problem! Your ministry has to expand; it must be a challenge. God is going to make it hard for you so that you will reach up and appropriate His strength and His wisdom. He will bring problems that cannot be solved by the wisdom you now have, and so you will need to get more from God. You will face situations that you do not have the endurance to handle, and so you will have to look to the Lord for more strength. It is an endless cycle. He continually sets before you something that you are not able to do, with the promise that you can do it because He will be with you.
Isaiah wrote, In the year of King Uzziah’s death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings; with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.
And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory.” And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. Isaiah 6:1–3. After reading about Isaiah’s shattering vision of the Lord, we realize that some of the religious television programs do not make sense: “Oh, the Lord is so precious; I saw a vision of my dear Jesus.” That “sweet Jesus” approach can be very nauseating. Actually, He dwells in a glory which no man can approach (I Timothy 6:16). When Isaiah had a revelation of God, he did not say, “Oh, this is so precious!” He said, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” Isaiah 6:5.
You will never have a revelation of God that does not reflect your own unworthiness. Any time there is that religiosity, that superspiritual attitude when someone has a dream or a vision, that vision most probably was not from God. A revelation of the Lord will devastate you. You can believe this kind of revelation: “I saw the glory of God and I fell on my face as one dead. Then the Lord had to perform a miracle to get me back on my feet again.”
Then one of the seraphim flew to me, with a burning coal in his hand which he had taken from the altar with tongs. And he touched my mouth with it and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is forgiven.” Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I. Send me!” Isaiah 6:6–8. You will never say, “Lord, I am ready,” except through blistered lips. You will never say, “I will go where you want me to go, Lord,” without initiating that cycle on its course.
When you speak His Word it will be wonderful, but you will remember what happened to bring it forth. The Lord became real to you, and then your need became real. Next, His dealings became real, and then His joy became real. Finally you came back to that first phase of the cycle and began repeating it again.
Hebrews 12:5–6 tells us not to regard lightly the chastenings of the Lord, for whom He loves, He chastens. Not one son will stand before God without a sore backside. Each man who speaks a living Word will speak it with blistered lips because God has purged him from his uncleanness. Be grateful if you are going through chastenings; it is because God loves you. If you are hungering for righteousness, and His dealings with you are hard to bear, then have the joyful anticipation that not only are you going to have joy, but you are going to continue on and on, growing in joyfulness. Even a little child has that anticipation. Just ask a little boy, “What are you going to be when you grow up?” He may say, “I am going to be an engineer”; or, “I want to be a fireman.” He may never grow up to be what he wants to be, but he enjoys anticipating what he would like to see happen.
For the joy that was set before Him, Jesus could endure the cross. And for the joy that is set before you, reach into that joy and take it. Anticipate what you will be doing and think about what you want to happen. It will make you joyful. Take your mind off of the present dealings and say, “Lord, whatever You are trying to tell me, let me learn it so that I can go on to the next step. Let me see what You are going to do in the earth.” When God starts the fires that purge within, it is the prelude to the canopy of glory that will rest over every habitation in Zion.
If you murmur while going through the chastening, you frustrate the cycle. But if you go through it rejoicing for the joy that will be set before you, then you are pleasing God. In everything give thanks, for that is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you (I Thessalonians 5:18). If you are not giving thanks in everything, but instead you are murmuring, complaining, and despondently voicing the negative unbelief, you are not pleasing God at all. His dealings then will give way to His discipline.
God is not just trying to channel you; He is trying to bring your spirit into a brokenness before Him. As long as you are rebelling and complaining and murmuring, you are not of a broken spirit. Have faith that God will take care of any problem. It does not matter what problems you have or what people are doing to you. It is your spirit that God is concerned about. If you approach a problem without joy, it means that you are not believing God. Murmuring is an evidence of unbelief. Instead of rebelling against a situation, let God help you to have a broken spirit; then the situation will change quickly because your spirit is right. You do not realize how much God will change things. If you have a wrong spirit, look to the Lord to forgive you. Seek to have a broken spirit before God. Reach into God to be one of His people. Reach into the Lord to walk joyfully. Be altogether joyful, altogether joyful, altogether joyful.