LET YOUR HEART REJOICE

LET YOUR HEART REJOICE

I switched insurance companies, and now I pay less, and I’m free of the harassment I was getting from the other company. I was a bulldog on this insurance switch for several months, and it finally all worked out. But did I relax and take time to enjoy the blessing? Nope. Instead, I started to get depressed about all the other things I needed to do. Wow, how stupid is that?!

We’ve all observed situations where someone gets their paycheck, but immediately, instead of being happy, they get depressed because they envision the money already being spent on bills. Maybe you’ve even been that person yourself.

It’s a matter of point of view. We get too focused on ourselves and the things WE need to do, rather than the blessings of what the LORD is doing for us.

Satan is watching for people he can hurt, but we can catch him and rebuke him when he immediately comes to take away the rejoicing and thankfulness we have when the Lord sows blessings into our hearts. We need to cherish and hold those things dear. It could be a financial blessing, a moment of laughter, a new revelation from the Bible, a puppy hug. Any small blessing that makes us smile is worthy of thankfulness to God.

Jesus gives us a parable about what can happen to the good seeds God sends our way.

“Behold, there went out a sower to sow; And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the wayside, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up. And these are they by the wayside, where the word is sown; but when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts” (Mark 4:3-4 and 15).

We can’t let the “prince of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2) steal away the joy of any of the wonderful seeds our God has sown into our hearts. If we don’t embrace the small good things, our hearts can’t blossom. Instead, they harden from a lack of joy, and we end up living a sad life with a broken heart.

Proverbs, God’s great book of wisdom, tells us: “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life” (Prov. 4:23). The Hebrew word for “keep” is “natsar,” which means “to guard from danger, be a watchman over, preserve.”

If we receive something good, and we immediately begin to worry about something else or think about the next trouble to conquer or the next burden to bear, we have to make ourselves stop. We need to rebuke Satan for trying to steal our joy. Just tell him to get out, in the name of Jesus Christ. Philippians 2:9-10 tells us that God has “given him [Jesus] a name which is above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth.”  

James 4:7 says: “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

And sometimes people feel like nothing good happens for them. But that has to be either that they are sinning and getting the bad results from it, or that they aren’t able to see what’s good, and that could be a spirit of blindness. God has good for everyone, and if people aren’t seeing it, then it has to be the devil in one form or another, and that can definitely be changed. Repenting and prayer can change everything around for any person.

Let’s let the Lord help us to do a little more rejoicing this week.

Love, Carolyn