Learning to Rejoice in the LORD

The word of God is living and powerful to instruct people concerning God and His ways.  The Bible is able to pierce us to reveal our motives, exposes our thoughts, rebukes sinful attitudes and teaches us what is acceptable to God.  In reading and studying the Bible a single word can speaks volumes to our hearts, and a verse understood in context and rightly applied is of more value than gold.  It is by faith in God we are given understanding, not the other way around.  If we try to understand the divine truths of the Bible without first submitting to God by trust in Him, we will remain ignorant of many things.

This remains true of Christians who have followed Jesus as disciples for some time and have knowledge of doctrine and familiarity with scripture.  Knowledge does not mean we are walking by faith in God and in the light of His love, grace and goodness.  A good fruit tree can be beset by beetles, have branches broken by a storm, be stricken with fungus and have dead wood that must be cut off.  A lot of emphasis in Christian circles is to determine if a person is "saved" or not when the reality of salvation is evidenced by the transformation of being born again and bearing the fruit of the Holy Spirit.  In time over many growing seasons an unknown tree will be known by its fruit, and the words we say and things believers do provide a testimony God is in us and we are His by grace through faith.  Even Judas was able to put on a good show that convinced the apostles, but God looks upon the heart.

One of the awesome things about following Jesus as LORD and King is everything He asks us to do He enables and empowers us to do.  In our flesh where there is no good thing that arises able to do God's will, He proves Himself sufficient by grace.  There are some things I have never been able to learn, like advanced maths and physics.  It is one thing to know facts but it is another to become a new creation in Christ who learns to love, forgive, submit and be content--to become the person God wants you to be.  After Paul rejoiced in the LORD in prison, having learned to be content in all situations of life, he wrote in Philippians 4:12-13:  "I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. ¹³ I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

Paul learned to rejoice in the LORD whether he was abased or suffered need, regardless if he was full or hungry.  He didn't look at a scrumptious meal and say,  "God is good today!" as if God was not as good when his stomach groaned in pain when he was starving.  Paul rejoiced in the LORD when people messaged him and sent gifts and rejoiced in the LORD when he felt lonely and disgraced.  Friends, have you learned this?  You might think, "How can anyone learn that?"  This is the context of Paul's oft-quoted statement:  "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."  God can teach us what we cannot learn ourselves.  Followers of Jesus can learn to rejoice in the LORD always and to be content everywhere an in all things.  Such a God-honouring perspective is not one natural to our flesh but is the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit within those brought forth to new life by the Gospel.

"Everywhere" and "in all things" provides us an opportunity to exercise faith in Jesus that works for the glory of God as we learn to rejoice in the LORD.