The Joy of the Lord is our Strength

We stand and lift up our hands,
For the joy of the Lord is out strength.

Nehemiah 8:10b (NIV)
Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.

What does this mean? I mean, I figure that what this verse is saying is that the joy that we have in God is what will give us strength. But is not the Lord Himself our strength? I think I am definitely reading too much into this. And it is not so black and white. God is my strength; how I become strong in Him, though, is by keeping my joy.

Psalm 16:5-11 says:

⁵ LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup;
you have made my lot secure.
⁶ The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance.

⁷ I will praise the LORD, who counsels me;
even at night my heart instructs me.
⁸ I have set the LORD always before me.
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.

⁹ Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will rest secure,
¹⁰ because you will not abandon me to the grave,^a]">[a]
nor will you let your Holy One^b]">[b] see decay.
¹¹ You have made^c]">[c] known to me the path of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence,
with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

Footnotes:

1. Psalm 16:10 Hebrew Sheol
2. Psalm 16:10 Or your faithful one
3. Psalm 16:11 Or You will make

I will have joy in the Lord because I know that He counsels me, is at my right hand, will not abandon me to the grave, nor let me decay. Why not have joy in the Lord?!

Here is a story taken from the Campus Crusade for Christ International (CCCI) website.

Your Source of Strength

"......the joy of the Lord is your strength" (Nehemiah 8:10b, KJV).

At a London train station one day, a woman was stopped by an elderly man.

"Excuse me, ma'am," he said, "but I want to thank you for something."

"Thank me!" the woman exclaimed.

"Yes'm, I used to be the ticket collector, and whenever you went by you always gave me a cheerful smile and a 'good mornin'." You don't know what a difference it made to me.

"Wet weather or dry, it was always the same, and I thought to myself, "Wonder where she gets her smile from; one can't always be happy, yet she seems to.' I knew that smile must come from inside somehow."

"Then one morning you came by and you had a little Bible in your hand. I said to myself, 'Perhaps that's where she gets her smile from.' So on my way home that night I bought a Bible, and I've been reading it, and I've found Christ. Now I can smile, too, and I want to thank you."

As you and I seek to be God's witnesses today, in dependence on the supernatural power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, we should be mindful constantly of the fact that the joy of the Lord can indeed be our strength. That joy inevitably will shine on our faces, regardless of circumstances.

In the words of an anonymous poem:

If you live close to God
And His infinite grace, You don't have to tell; It shows on your face.

TODAY'S ACTION POINT: I will make a conscious effort to reflect the joy of my indwelling Lord in such a way that it will glow on my very countenance. While it is true that joy is a fruit of the Spirit, it is also true that the reflection of that joy is my responsibility. But I will go a step further. I will tell everyone who will listen about the one who is the source of my joy.

---

Lord Jesus, praise be to Your Name. You are worthy and deserving of praise. I thank You that You even care about me and that You are so good that You will not let my foot slip nor will let me be shaken. Hallelu Yah. Lord, as I take away from this lesson, help me to be joyous in You and to let that joy shine in my life and on my FACE. Praise the Name of the Lord! Hallelu Yah! Hallelu Yah! Thank You Jesus. Please keep me in my stage/phase of doubt. May I be more powerful and ever stronger when I come out of it. This I boldly pray in the name of Jesus the Christ, Amen.

Help me to be Humble

Lord, teach me to be humble. Help me to recognize Your Lordship so that I may abide by Your will without question. Lord, help me to understand that You want good things for me; You do not intend to harm me in any way. So let me just trust You.

Deliver me Lord,

From the desire of being esteemed.
From the desire of being loved.
From the desire of being extolled.
From the desire of being honored.
From the desire of being praised.
From the desire of being preferred to others.
From the desire of being consulted.
From the desire of being approved.
From the fear of being humiliated.
From the fear of being despised.
From the fear of suffering rebukes.
From the fear of being forgotten.
From the fear of being ridiculed.

Lord Jesus, I want to be so small. So small God. Help me to desire this God. Help me to bring honor and glory to Your name; not my own. Lord I love You. I love You because You love me and care for me and died for me. And I realize that love is an action word, not a feeling. And the way I show my love is by abiding by YOUR law and serving YOUR will and greater purpose.

But man is weak God; I need Your help serving You. God live in me. Live so richly and so deeply in me so that when You look at me, You see Yourself. Hallelujah. Let it be so Lord, let it be so.

Lord, it is difficult. Really and truly difficult. But may I desire,

That others may be loved more than I.
That others may be esteemed more than I.
That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease.
That others may be chosen and I set aside.
That others may be praised and I go unnoticed.
That others may be preferred to me in everything.

Lord, help me to desire to be so small so that I do not want or delight in the praise of the world, only Your approval. Help me to be so small God so that You are the only thing I truly desire. Lord, You satisfy. This hole in my heart, fill it God. Fill this God-sized hole completely so that I do not try to stuff other things in it. Lord, dwell in me so richly so that I do not worry about the things of this world; fill me with the peace that only You can give.

Blessed peace God.

The anxieties, the worries, the confusions, the fear...take it all away Lord. Help me to trust You fully; You know what You are doing.

Ah, Lord. Thank You. Thank You, thank You. You are always there when I need You. You never go away. Never. And I thank You for that.

Amen, Amen.

Christ's Humility

Philippians 2:1-11 (New International Version)

1 If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion,
2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.
3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.
4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7 but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

Hi all. I haven't posted here in months. My unfaithfulness to this blog is not a reflection of my walk with God, but it is an accurate portrayal of my unfaithfulness to the reading of His Word. Bible Reading is not my thing; I find it one of the most difficult practices of my Christian life. Yet, I desire to hear from Him... ah boy. Anyway.

This passage is packed with so much meaning. This is one of passages that was looked at at Bible Study on Wednesday. The pastor was using the passage to talk about Christ's Lordship and demonstrate the depth of Christ's Lordship, but the passage spoke to me in another way.

Two characteristics of Christian life that I constantly struggle with are 1) Forgiveness and 2) Humility. I still have problems letting go of what J and D did even though we are on cool terms and it happened over a year ago (see "The Battle" blog for those details). And it is hard to be humble when people gas your head and make you feel like the coolest thing in the world. But look at Jesus. He was God, and he knew it. But he "did not consider equality with God something to be grasped" (verse 6). The dude was God! He had every reason to be gassed. But he did not boast about his divinity or equate Himself with the Most High. He made Himself nothing and took the form of a servant (verse 7). God, of all people, was humble. What do I have to be proud about if the Creator of the universe was humble?

Food for thought.