How blessed is the one whose strength is in You, whose heart is set on the Way. Passing through the valley of Baca (weeping) they make it a spring; the early rain (mowreh (מוֹרֶה): Teacher, early rain) also covers it with blessings. They go from strength to strength, each one appears before God in Zion. Psalm 84:6-7.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
When you have connected with Me and are walking in the light of My love, eternal life is in your heart by My Spirit in you (resurrection power) and Christ in you, your hope of glory! And that is when everything becomes joy, the joy of a life going forward to life that is life indeed, headed towards the heavenly Zion, and not backing into the dead end of death.
And the disciples were continually filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. Acts 13:52.
Adam put everyone’s life in reverse, going back to the dust from which you were first formed, a downward course to eternal death, but Jesus came and reversed that curse of the law and set you going forward to glory on an upward course to eternal life. There are just two choices in this life on earth as you know it now, one is the way of death and one is the way of life.
I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the LORD your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days. Deuteronomy 30:19-20.
One way is the painful burden of the darkness of death wrapped in uncertainty without hope, the other is the joy unspeakable filled with glory in certainty of a future filled with hope.
Which do you prefer? If you believe in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and have confessed Him as Lord you can be certain you are redeemed from the curse of the law of sin and death and are on your way to the heavenly Zion, in fact, the truth is that in Jesus you are already established there in the Spirit.
But you HAVE come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels in festal gathering, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel. Hebrews 12:22-24.
So, if you have put yourself in the valley of weeping it is about time you made a spring of it and went from strength to strength in Me. It is time for you to learn how to rejoice always in Me. It is time you learned the secret of being content wherever you may be when you are in Christ.
I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. Philippians 4:11-13.
And there is the secret, when you are in Christ and walking in the life of good deeds I prepared for you in Him, His strength becomes your strength by reason of the relationship, drawing all you need from Him, but there is more.
How blessed is the one whose strength is in You, whose heart is set on the Way. Passing through the valley of Baca (weeping) they make it a spring; the early rain (mowreh (מוֹרֶה): Teacher, early rain) also covers it with blessings. They go from strength to strength, each one appears before God in Zion. Psalm 84:6-7.
It is time to learn the absolute unparalleled joy of living the life of perfect obedience, this may sound strange to those to whom obedience is a word that grates against their rebellious nature, that is, the sons of disobedience, who have been taken captive by Satan to do his will, which brings no peace. The wicked are like that tossing waves of the sea, they have no peace, no rest.
There is great rest, great peace, in obedience to My Word. My Words are life to those who find them and health to all their flesh. It is because it is in the obedience that the power to do the command and to reap the fullness of the blessing in it comes to pass.
By watching your thoughts, words, deeds, and your mouth constantly you come into a place of dominion whereby you reign in life through Christ Jesus, having received the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness, in a place of continual rejuvenation and rest.
In righteousness you will be established; you will be far from oppression, for you will not fear; and from terror, for it will not come near you. If anyone fiercely assails you it will not be from Me. Whoever assails you will fall because of you. Isaiah 54:14-15.
It is in the secret place of obedience to My Word that nothing can penetrate your wall of joy. A joy nothing and no one can take from you. It puts you above and not beneath, the head and not the tail. It is shabbat shalom continually. You are master of all that would come against you.
“Now it shall be, if you hear and obey the voice of the LORD your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I command you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you listen to and obey the voice of the LORD your God: Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country. Blessed shall be the offspring of your body and the produce of your ground and the offspring of your beasts, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. The LORD shall cause your enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you; they will come out against you one way and will flee before you seven ways. The LORD will command the blessing upon you in your barns and in all that you put your hand to, and He will bless you in the land which the LORD your God gives you. The LORD will establish you as a holy people to Himself, as He swore to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in His ways. So all the peoples of the earth will see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they will be afraid of you. The LORD will make you abound in prosperity, in the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your beast and in the produce of your ground, in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers to give you. The LORD will open for you His good storehouse, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand; and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. The LORD will make you the head and not the tail, and you only will be above, and you will not be underneath, if you listen to and obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I charge you today, to observe them carefully, and do not turn aside from any of the words which I command you today, to the right or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them. Deuteronomy 28:1-14.
In the midst of a storm you stand in peace, like Paul in the storm that broke over the boat wherein the prisoners were traveling to Rome. In the midst of the storm, he was calm and full of hope because he already knew that I had told him that he would testify in Rome and I was with him. That was enough for him to have peace and give it to everyone else on the ship in the midst of what would have been a place of hopeless panic. And everyone got saved. One person of faith can give life in place of death.
The point I want to make is to learn to enjoy things and think how special it is that you have the opportunity to be involved in the work of the Kingdom wherever you are by sowing the seeds of love, joy, and peace in the Holy Spirit and instead of complaining and “stressing out” you just enjoy all the amazing things I give you to do each moment of the day. And instead of calling things wasted time, you started seeing them as times to walk in the obedience of a quiet gentle answer, and even beyond, to say you are enjoying the busy-ness of your day as a gift from Me. Nothing is too small or too big in My sight if you are doing it with faith and love.
Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. James 1:2-4.
Learn to lean on Me more, for My yoke is easy and My burden light, and talk less about how you feel in a negative way or how stressed out you are. Stop complaining about your workload, your job, your children, your clients, and start telling your family, your children, your spouse, your co-workers, your clients, even the clerk at the store, how you appreciate them and what a good time you are having with them.
Learn to be quiet and happy not only outwardly but inwardly with yourself. Instead of berating yourself about mistakes or sins, confess them to Me and cast the care of getting the mess cleaned up with Me and then thank Me joyfully that, as far as our relationship is concerned, the sin is gone and you are forgiven, and that I withhold no good thing from you just because you messed up so many times in the past. Instead of tormenting yourself with what you should have done and missed or messed up turn that into rejoicing that you are forgiven and going forward to far more than you ever asked or imagined with Me in Christ. This will take you from strength to strength, because My joy will flood you as you obey and My joy is your strength. Joy makes you strong and makes everything a continual feast. No matter what is going on around you in the world, you are in the secret place of provision, abundant overflowing provision, based on the Kingdom as your source of supply.
Though the fig tree should not blossom and there be no fruit on the vines, though the yield of the olive should fail and the fields produce no food, though the flock should be cut off from the fold and there be no cattle in the stalls, yet I will exult in the LORD, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord LORD is my strength, and He has made my feet like hinds’ feet, and makes me walk on my high places. For the choir director, on my stringed instruments. Habakkuk 3:17-19.
Making a spring of it is always the answer to take you to Zion, the heavenly mountain of grace where I set a banquet before you in the sight of your foes and cause your cup to overflow with the joy of eternal life in the midst of your enemies. When I am with you, who or what can be against you? Nothing and no one. But how can two walk together unless they agree. Faith is agreeing with the truth of My Word despite what the circumstances look like. For you know that the truth can make the facts line up with it if you enforce it. And the quickest way to enforce the truth is with joy. That is the highest expression of confident faith. Joy that bursts out in song.
A highway will be there, a roadway, and it will be called the Highway of Holiness. The unclean will not travel on it, but it will be for him who walks the Way, and fools will not wander on it. No lion will be there, nor will any vicious beast go up on it; these will not be found there. But the redeemed will walk there, and the ransomed of the LORD will return and come with joyful shouting and singing to Zion, with everlasting joy upon their heads. They will find gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing will flee away. Isaiah 35:8-10.
It is for those that walk the way, the truth and the life. The highway of holiness. For in Christ, I sanctify you and make you holy continually in His blood that is an eternal redemption that ever is on the mercy seat (propitiatory) in Heaven as He intercedes for you. Which is the narrow way of rejoicing always, praying without ceasing and giving constant thanks that very few find but it leads straight to abundant, eternal, overflowing, ever increasing life.
I love you. Get out of reverse and go forward with joy. Your walls are salvation and your gates are praise and inside there is joyful singing.