The Force of Joy

In our journey with the Father, sometimes we get drawn back to doing our religious rituals and charismatic calisthenics. If we follow that path very long, we will find ourselves diminished of joy. We need to remember to keep joy at the forefront of what we do.

There is joy in Heaven.

If people will come and engage Heaven, they can experience the joy of Heaven. We play here, we run with the wind. There is peace, but the joy in the laughter is a principle. The joy of the Lord is indeed your strength.”

If laughter is like good medicine, what do you think joy is to the marrow and to the bones?”

It strengthens because Joy is where the strength resides.

Even with those people who have medical conditions that leave them depressed, the joy of the Lord is their strength too.

Nehemiah 8:10 says, “The Joy of the Lord is your strength” while the converse is true: The strength of the Lord is your Joy. It is important to realize that as you realize for yourself the strength of the Lord, it brings you joy to know your enemies are utterly defeated—regardless of their antics. Coupling an understanding with the strength of the Lord and His mighty hand, will bring you joy to know every enemy can be defeated—has been defeated in your life.

How do we apply this?

Joy is a strength that is invited. Pause now and make this declaration: “Joy, I invite you to be my strength.”

Paul wrote to the Thessalonian believers,

Let joy be your continual feast. (1 Thessalonians 5:16)

Joy, like a substance—an entity will come.

Joy can be invited.

Receive it like an entity into your spirit, soul, and body.  As it enters your spirit, it will impact your soul and your body realm.

If you are being challenged physically or emotionally, ask Joy to strengthen you, to strengthen your bones and your marrow.

So many people don't see Jesus in joy. They can't taste, know, or see the fruit that is love that is here. It's difficult for them to know that joy comes from this place, it emanates from here. The Father desires for them to have it—to seek it. All we need to do is knock and it will be opened to us, seek and we will find it.

His heart's desire is for us to have joy in everything.

This place of Joy is available to them.

All the riches of Heaven are available to us, but we have to come.

Peter wrote in the first epistle of Peter:

3 Let us celebrate the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with articulate acclaim. According to his matchless mercy and tender compassions, he birthed us again when Jesus was raised from the dead. In him, we were rebooted to live the authentic life of our design; while participating in a living hope, witnessing the Father's expectation of the ages unfold in us. 4 We are introduced to an imperishable inheritance, which has been flawlessly preserved for us in the heavenly realm, where neither Adam’s fall, nor mankind’s failure to justify themselves, could possibly contaminate, discredit or diminish the original portion of our true sonship realized in Christ Jesus. 5 Your legitimate inheritance was guarded all along by God’s belief in you, to be fully unveiled in the conclusion of time as the perfect solution to mankind’s predicament. 6 So, regardless of any degree of contradiction, whether prolonged, or swift, your reason for exuberant joy remains uninterrupted; even at times where you might have occasion to feel utterly miserable.

7 This will help you in those difficult times: think of your belief as something much more precious than any possible evaluation of gold; remember that fire does not destroy the metal, it reveals it. Now even gold is an inferior comparison to faith. Gold as a currency has only temporal and unpredictable value; it fluctuates as the market changes. Now, in the same way that fire reveals gold, your faith in the midst of contradiction, makes Jesus Christ visible and gives much reason to testimony stories worth telling. This is what has permanent value, and exhibits the glory of Christ in you.

8 So even though you have never seen Jesus in the flesh you love him; even at times where he seems remote and invisible, your awareness of your union in him continues to ignite belief. You are leaping with indescribable and exuberant joy as you hold him in high esteem. 9 In this place of joy, you are beyond the reach of any harm. Joy gives your faith a voice announcing the perfection of your soul’s salvation. (Joy celebrates the fulfillment of Scripture. Belief gives evidence of everything the Prophets pointed to. 10 This salvation which you now known as your own, is the theme of the prophetic thought; this is what intrigued the Prophets’ minds for generations and became the object of their most diligent inquiry and scrutiny. They knew all along that mankind’s salvation was a grace revelation, sustained in their prophetic utterance. (Emphasis added)[1]

Jesus, in His goodness and in His mercy, laid down his life for his friends. He is their friend. He considers them friends.

Jesus is the friend that sticks closer than a brother and how significant it is that He calls us friends. We know the song, “I am a friend of God, He calls me friend.” His joy, it is significant. His is the joy that we should be experiencing instead of the sorrows and the grief and the pain. You can have joy amid pain, it's a different kind of joy. His joy is healing and strengthening. We have experienced both the lack of joy and having joy. We have experienced sorrow and then, when the joy replaces it, how beautiful that is.

In this engagement, we were confronted by Samson. It is significant that we were shown Sampson in the beginning, you know, we were shown his strength. There has never been anyone else ever born that had the strength that he had. We, as the children of God need to see ourselves being able to have that knowing of the strength that we have to defeat our enemies. We can be like Samson who went into every battle fearlessly because he knew he would conquer because of his strength. We can have that.

“For when I am weak, then I am strong” because His grace is sufficient for us and Him giving us the strength to overcome. The strength to make it through difficult things, difficult days, difficult times, difficult nights when we can't sleep.

2 My fellow believers, when it seems as though you are facing nothing but difficulties see it as an invaluable opportunity to experience the greatest joy that you can! 3 For you know that when your faith is tested it stirs up power within you to endure all things. 4 And then as your endurance grows even stronger it will release perfection into every part of your being until there is nothing missing and nothing lacking. (James 1:2-4)

This is a very encouraging message to people because if you're bound in a judgment-based or performance-based mindset, it is very difficult to find that joy because it's not inherent in those mindsets. Instead, there is condemnation, the ‘never measuring up’, the ‘I'm never good enough’, ‘I can never do enough’.

When you have a performance-based mindset, there's no joy in any of that. There is only criticism. The scolding, the condemnation. I’m never enough. I’m never good enough. We can never do enough to satisfy that mindset.

Jesus came to give us joy, to set us free from all of that. And when we are free of that mindset, there is great joy. Joy can flood us. We can laugh over the silly things sometimes.

God, who is the engineer of expectation fills you to the brim with tranquil delight. The dynamic of the Holy Spirit causes faith to exceed any possible hesitation in hope. (Romans 15:13) (MIRROR)

God's royal dominion is not based on food and drink regulations, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. (Romans 14:17) (MIRROR)

Joy is not a luxury option. Joy is our constant. The Lord is our permanent source of delight. Rejoice in the Lord always. This kind of joy empowers us to show perfect courtesy towards all people. The Lord is not nearer to some than what he is to others. Your joy makes the gospel visible and irresistible. Every definition of distance is cancelled as well as every excuse to feel miserable and neglected. (Philippians 4:4-5) (MIRROR)

We must allow Joy to reside within us. The world is waiting!

The Present Move

Tune in, there is more to know about the force of Joy.

Joy is more than an entity. It is a force meaning it can impact things and cause things that would prevail against you to back away. It takes the act of rejoicing to create and release the force of joy. Many years ago, the laughing revival occurred. Many mocked it and disavowed it, but those are the ones who refused to allow joy a place in their lives. They had determined how I should move among a people. That I should move with much repentance and tears of sorrow. I have moved among people that way, but I can also move another way among my people. I can restore hope to them, and hope manifest itself in joy. Hope deferred makes a heart sick but when a desire is fulfilled it is a tree of life. Joy is an expression of the Tree of Life, not a tree of death and despair.

Even in the present move that you hear it will be earmarked by joy, but not necessarily the way it was in the past. Some will try to recreate it hoping to be what was in days gone by, while others will try to keep the move going down a certain pathway.

I’m not doing what I am doing to validate a prophet. I am doing what I’m doing to validate my promise to many that I have spoken and shared my heart with over the years. I’m doing what I’m doing because I love my people.

Do NOT be satisfied with a move just in this nation or in neighboring nations. Request this outpouring to be global in scope for I love all the peoples of the earth regardless of what political structure they are forced to live under. Joy can be expressed in every culture. The force of Joy can be manifest among every people group. You will know that it—this move has permanence when you begin hearing reports of people being touched who do not have contact with the popular places I am moving among in this nation.

Some will claim ownership, but it is not theirs to own. Some will put on a false humility and seek to be stewards of this move, but this is larger than them. It requires more of this than they possess on their own.

Humility among the leaders is key to its longevity. You have the ability in the natural to publicize what I am doing in ways never before experienced, but good marketing does not a move of God make. Let me simply move among my people and touch them. They need the joy of refreshing and the refreshing of Joy.

This move must be paced so those I am utilizing to spearhead it have the stamina for a long-term expression of My Glory. It is My Glory that is being released and I want that Glory to touch every man, woman and child.

Do you want to experience this move for yourself? Then invite me to visit you in whatever form I choose to do so. Invite me for I am willing to come.

[1] du Toit, Francois. Mirror Study Bible. Kindle Edition.