Have you ever noticed that when you are upset, gloomy, or full of whining and complaining, you end up feeling weak, exhausted, and drained—as if your energy has been completely zapped out of you? We all have been there, and Nehemiah 8:10 (NKJV) reminds us why: “for the joy of the LORD is your strength.” This is why the enemy attacks our joy so often; if we are no longer focused on joy, our strength becomes depleted too. There is an interesting connection between our strength and our joy, specifically the joy that comes from the Lord—the only joy that lasts. Psalm 5:11 (NKJV) tells us, “But let all those rejoice who put their trust in You; Let them ever shout for joy, because You defend them; Let those also who love Your name Be joyful in You.” It is because of God that we have joy, for “In [His] presence is fullness of joy” (Psalm 16:11; NKJV). Therefore, because of His joy, and really, because of Him and all that He is, we rejoice.
God is our source of joy, but we have a part to play in it too. We are not meant to just sit back and watch people rejoice, but we are created to participate in the rejoicing—to release our own sound, our own worship. Psalm 71:23 (NIV; emphasis added) reminds us “My lips will shout for joy when I sing praise to You— I whom You have delivered.” Quiet, gentle moments in worship, when we are still before God, are certainly important, but may we never lose sight of what is just as important: our shout of joy, our hallelujah, our battle cry of the victory won at the cross. There are moments where we feel defeat and discouragement rising against us, pushing us back into a corner of no escape, but what does God tell us we should do? What is our battle strategy in these moments of the enemy’s fierce attacks? Psalm 98:4 (KJV; emphasis added) says, “Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.” Another version restates, “break forth—let your cry ring out, and sing praises!” (BSB; emphasis added). In those times when we are surrounded by negativity, rather than giving in to desperation, we must release a sound that is counterintuitive: our praise. We must “break forth” and make our cry “ring out,” as the verse says. We are not crying out to beg God to give us victory; we are crying out in agreement with what He has already done—the complete victory He has already won by His blood shed at the cross. As a good friend once said, “We fight not to win but because Jesus has already won.” His victory is one of the many reasons to rejoice and praise Him, which feeds our joy all the more.
What is the point of “bursting forth” into praise? It utterly destroys the darkness. Even though it might not immediately resolve everything, our praise disarms the enemy because he cannot stand the sound of our worship to God. Psalm 22:3 proclaims that God inhabits our praise, and where He dwells, the enemy cannot remain. The Lord Himself “…[surrounds us] with songs of deliverance” (Psalm 32:7; NIV). There is immense power in praise! Think about the walls of Jericho falling at the loud shouts of the people (Joshua 6:10-20), or the chains breaking when Paul and Silas worshiped God in their prison cells (Acts 16:25-26). Often we don’t realize just how powerful our “hallelujah!” is.
The joy of the Lord is fueled by gratitude. What we focus on, we exalt. When we set our eyes on the problems around us, we let bitterness, grumbling, and despair grow in our hearts, and we end up exalting the enemy and giving him attention that he does not deserve. So we must lift our eyes and fix our attention on Jesus, allowing gratefulness to wash over our hearts and flourish, because then we exalt the only One worthy of being exalted. But why gratefulness? What is there to be grateful for in a world of such darkness? The reality is there are countless reasons. The Bible is literally teeming with reasons to praise God; we just have to open our eyes and let His perspective renew our minds. Growing up in this world, we might find it hard to praise, but we are called to let the Word of God wash our minds in the purity of His thoughts. The more time we spend in His Word, the deeper His roots will grow in our hearts. Thus, we will see afresh all the reasons to thank Him, until praise overflows from within us and is no longer contrived.
In these troubling times, may we mirror Jesus on the cross, who had a “joy that was set before Him,” and thus was able to endure the excruciating pain of the cross (Hebrews 12:2; NKJV). Many things amplify our joy, but our ultimate light at the end of the tunnel, our joy set before us, is Jesus. May we arise as the ones who break through the negativity with a shout of joy unto our victorious Lord.
Art Credit: Author
YES! We should look to God!