Rejoice. Be Patient. Be Persistent.

Today, I made myself sit down and meditate on the Word. I would love to recap my year and talk about all the lovely things this year held. But honestly, it slipped through my fingers like sand falling through an hourglass. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t find myself lively. It has felt like sleep-sitting in a room where only God and I remain. I didn’t leave. I simply sat knee to knee, looked into His eyes and said,

“I can’t but You can. I don’t have the words, but You do. I am so weary, but I know there’s nowhere I’d rather be. I know You won’t leave. I need You to breathe for me because I’m forgetting how. There is no other place I want to run to. I just want you and I want to mean it when I say you’re enough because my flesh is screaming that you aren’t and it physically hurts me. How can I stand in your presence? The God who cradles the stars and calls them each by name and say, “You aren’t enough!” So, please (tears streaming) breathe for me. There is nothing left.”

And it is there, knee to knee, God and I have remained. And maybe I’ll share the depth of this place one day but for now, those words are His and mine.

For now, I just need to put something in action. Letting the words flow that are a clear, beautiful melody that fills the atmosphere with truth and assurance.

Page 1 – Romans 12:12.

“Rejoice in hope, be patient in affliction, be persistent in prayer.”

First instruction is to what? Rejoice! In what? HOPE!

The hope we rejoice in is the freedom from sin we find through salvation in Jesus. It is a promise from the Father to us! We are promised eternal life through Jesus. This promise is light in the midst of darkness. Joy in the midst of chaos and despair. Grace to the undeserving and a love so vast it is unmeasurable and unconditional. Basically insert every word that starts with “un” and BOOM that’s God’s love. Unrelenting. Unchanging. Undeserved. Unashamed… You get it.

Look at the definition of hope, “the sure and confident expectation of receiving what God has promised us in the future, trust in, wait for, look for, or desire something or someone”

As believers, we are to EXPECT something to happen. We are to trust in God’s character!

Trusting in His character is the foundation. It leaves no room for doubt. When we trust in His character and lean on His promises, waiting becomes peace like a river. God’s character has never faltered. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is the God who goes before you, behind you, and encamps you with angel armies.

I encourage you to pursue studying His character. If we were to go into it here, we would be here for the rest of our lives and the reading and studying would never come to an end. But that is what reading the Word does. It shows us who God is. It captivates and changes us from the inside out. And it does this without fault. We will never stop learning who God is.

How mind-blowing it is to know our God is so vast! There is always more. WOW!

Knowing who God is, is a call to rejoice. The truth alone that He is God is reason enough to rejoice and yet, we fall into the lie that it is (He is) not enough.

We all have things we so desperately hope for and when they do not happen in the time frame we have placed, doubt creeps its way in. Doubt is sneaky that way. It slowly turns our eyes from God to self. And yet, the Word clearly instructs us to die to ourselves daily.

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20

“For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Colossians 3:3

It is vital that we discipline ourselves to keep our eyes on Jesus. When we condition ourselves to no longer look to the right or the left, we remain steady during the storms. We gain peace and an understanding that surpasses all human limits. God’s ways are so much higher than ours. It doesn’t come down to explaining ourselves, it should come down to explaining who God is for us, concerning us. He is why love abounds here. He is why forgiveness happened here. He is why. He is why.

The answer to it all is because of Jesus!

Now, go to Romans for a minute. This passage shows us what rejoicing accomplishes concerning our character.

“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Romans 5:3-5

Which leads us to James 1:2-4

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

Keeping our eyes on Jesus is where we find that giddy expectation of hope. Resting assured God’s promises have been and will be fulfilled. We are not abandoned in the realm of the dead but alive in Christ.

As believers, we have the spirit of the living God inside of us. It is an assurance that we will receive our inheritance. Inheritance means to receive an irrevocable gift. And since God is not a God of lies, nor is He unchanging, this truth takes the floor in one swell swoop. The inheritance we have in Christ is reserved, unspoiled, unfading, and everlasting.

Knowing this makes room for patience. Why? Because we trust in God’s character. In turn makes us trust in His timing and in His ways. We make our heart, soul, and mind rest in who He is. He is the one who sets our feet on a firm foundation. A foundation unshaken. It causes us to rejoice all the more in our present suffering because we know what God has in store is more than we could ever imagine. It will be from the goodness of our Father’s heart.

We accomplish living in this hope by being persistent in prayer. Position yourself in the throne room and do not yield. Remain in the presence of God. Be tenacious of your position and remain steadfast. It takes practice. It takes making yourself remembering who your God is and how big He is. Your relationship with God can feel like soaring on the wings of eagles. Freedom can be the anthem of your life. All it takes is “yes.” Again and again, “YES!”

SCRIPTURE REFERENCE

UNCHANGING

Hebrews 13:8 – “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

Malachi 3:6 “For I the Lord do not change;”

Psalm 139:5 “You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head.”

ENCAMPED BY ANGELS

Psalm 34:7 – “The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him and delivers them.”

PEACE LIKE A RIVER

Isaiah 66:12-13 – “For thus says the LORD: “Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream;”

Isaiah 48:18 – ^“I wish you would pay attention to my commands. If you did, peace would flow over you like a river.”

KEEP YOUR EYES ON JESUS

Proverbs 4:25-27 – “Let your eyes look straight ahead; foz your gaze directly before you. Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways. Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.”

Hebrews 12:1-2– “ Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, ² looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

GOD DWELLING WITHIN US

Romans 8:9-11- “You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

OUR INHERITANCE

Ephesians 1:11 – “In [Christ] we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will”

Colossians 3:24 – “Knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.”

NOT ABANDONED IN THE REALM OF THE DEAD

Psalm 16:10 – “For you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay.” 

Acts 2:31 – “He foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body undergo decay”.

Psalms 139:7-10 – “If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.”

FIRM FOUNDATION

Matthew 7:24-27 – “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

LIVING IN THE SPIRIT

Galatians 5 – “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.² Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. ³ I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. ⁴ You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. ⁵ For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. ⁶ For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.⁷ You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? ⁸ This persuasion is not from him who calls you. ⁹ A little leaven leavens the whole lump. ¹⁰ I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. ¹¹ But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed. ¹² I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!¹³ For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. ¹⁴ For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁵ But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.¹⁶ But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. ¹⁷ For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. ¹⁸ But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. ¹⁹ Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, ²⁰ idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, ²¹ envy drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. ²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. ²⁴ And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.