Acts 2:28 “Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance.”
Today we’re reminded amidst all the tough realization and tough pushing to do the will of God, that living for God is so much better than living for the world or for ourselves!
God moved on my heart yesterday to mention and remind us that living for God and doing His Will and Plan for our lives is not JUST all about stepping out of our comfort zones, and everything dreadful. Rather, Living for God and doing His Will is the most blessed thing in the world, despite the troubles that we’ll have! Just as Jesus told us in John 16:33: In the world we’ll have these tribulations and troubles and have to get uncomfortable to work with God; however, we can have peace in knowing that Jesus has overcome the world!
Today, we look at what David was saying, concerning the Lord Jesus (being taught by Peter). We are reminded that there is Fullness of Joy with God’s Countenance! Having God with you, gives fullness of Joy! And David mentions knowing the ways of Life. David was the second King of Israel, living LONG before the Lord Jesus walked in human flesh and died on the cross for us. If David could make such statements, we most certainly can as well because we have an even greater blessing than He had! He didn’t know God like we are able to know Him today!
If you ever meet me face to face and spend time with me, you’ll find that I’m always saying things like “Excellent” to describe my day or week or how I’m doing. You’ll also find that I try to get YOU to say the same thing! My day or week could be going really badly and I could be really struggling through some things. However, I will tell you I’m doing excellent, and am blessed. Am I lying? Not at all! Am I “losing touch with reality” as a lot of Christians have told me? Not in the least bit! In fact, it’s BECAUSE I’ve gotten in touch with what’s real that I can say I’m doing excellent.
Growing up the way I did, God had to teach me a major truth of how Blessed I really was. Not too much longer after God had first called me and I gave my life to Christ and started to follow Him, I faced rejection and trouble like never before. I would pray for death every night. Every night I would pray that God just take me home, I didn’t care if it was painfully done or done in my sleep, I just wanted to get out of all the trouble I was going through. I did that every day and every night, until one night God spoke to me in a dream. I was in a room that was pitch black and I couldn’t see anything. Then right before me was a huge door that started opening up. On the other side of that door was an incredibly bright light that was shining. As it opened all the way, I saw God sitting on the throne, and Jesus sitting on His right side. At that moment God told me, “You are more blessed than anything ever possible in the world, because you have been given the greatest thing: ME. No matter what troubles you face, you are so much more blessed, because I’ve given you ME. Never forget that.” I stopped praying for death since then.
To this day I will never forget the great truth that God showed me, and I’ll never stop trying to get Christians to realize how blessed they truly are, despite the excruciating trouble they may be going through. If I can wake up and Praise God, then I’m doing excellent. Why? Because I could have woken up in Hell itself! There is no “return” from Hell. There is no “restart” in Hell. When you’re in Hell, you’re there for good. And that’s the point: You and I have been given Salvation and no matter what horrible problems and horribly deep valleys we may be going through for however long we’ve been going through them, nothing compares to the blessing we have in Salvation itself. Yet even then, God doesn’t stop in blessing us with only Salvation, but has given us ALL spiritual blessings, remember?
I honestly get a bit frustrated when I talk to a brother and sister in Christ, and explain to them how blessed they are and how they are indeed too blessed to be anything but excellent, and they simply use the excuse “Yeah, but” and continue on with their problems and focusing on how much they’re going through. Did you go through as much as Jesus? Or how about as much as the Prophets in the Old Testament, as we’re reminded of in Hebrews 11:35-40 (Read to understand), or how about Paul who even said in Romans 8:18 that the problems we have now, are not even worthy to be COMPARED with the glory revealed in us! The same God who was their God, and the Same Holy Spirit who was there for them (even more for us today after the Cross) is the same God and Holy Spirit we have today!
Am I saying we should forget our problems, or ignore them altogether? Not at all! The problems we go through can be excellent testimonies that can minister to so many people! You see me do it often: I mention the problems I’ve gone through and even may have to go through today. The thing is, we don’t ignore our problems, but we also don’t put the focus on those problems so much that they are bigger than the focus of God bringing us through them! Instead of the “Woe is me, I’m going through this and this and this and this other thing as well as that and this and that and more of that than I can handle and yet more of this than that. . .” type of thing that keeps you down and excused from walking onward with God, we need to cry out to God to help us through, and KNOW that we’ve been given much more good than the bad we’re going through, and we need to explain our troubles as God bringing us through them, instead of them keeping us down and out—Even if we have to say these things by faith when we don’t “feel” it. As I mentioned before of the time God told me to get back up and keep walking, and I replied upset asking God how in the world He can expect me to get up after going through what I went through. His reply reminded me of when I was hurting physically but kept getting up after a punch. I got up despite not FEELING well, but just KNOWING that I’d be okay. It’s the same here, even though we may not FEEL excellent or blessed or feel like we’ve been given all these wonderful things, we can know in our heart that we HAVE been given them and therefore we can speak what we know from the Word of God, by faith.
We’ve been given God, in whose countenance is FULLNESS OF JOY! If you have to, read today’s verse and set it to memory so that you can remind yourself during the tough times that we are guaranteed to have in our lives! Tell it to God, as a prayer and reminder even. Just know that despite being called to live for Him in a sin-cursed world, and having to get up from falls and walks in the valleys, we are really blessed and have been given such great things to make our walk with God MORE than worth any and all trouble we may have!
I love you greatly, and pray that God continues to grow you and so fill you with His Spirit to beyond the point of overflowing! May we never forget our blessings we have in God alone, and how Much God loves us to have given them to us! Have a very blessed day today in the Lord!
Love Always in Christ,
Your Friend,
And Brother,
Michael
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Psalm 16:8 “I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.”
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