Can joy be a weapon? How do you use joy to fight?
The enemy of our souls wields a weapon against us called discouragement that affects many today. Why is discouragement so prevalent? Satan uses discouragement to steal our joy. Why is it important to him to steal our joy?
Joy is a powerful weapon in our arsenal against the enemy.
If you subscribe to my blog (which I hope you do), you probably noticed I haven’t written for a while. Lately, some life events completely out of our control, caused my husband and me to become discouraged. It appeared evil prevailed and good could not win. We all know that is a lie but it worked for awhile.
When we become discouraged, the Spiritual gifts God placed in us to bear fruit for His Kingdom become silenced thus stealing our joy making us a spiritual cripple.
“Discourage” in Hebrew is chathath. It means dismayed, shattered, broken, afraid or terrified. It means to beat down, prostrate, or break down by violence or confusion or fear.
Doesn’t that sound like the world right now? All you have to do is turn on the TV or look on social media for confusion, violence, and fear to overwhelm you.
When we become discouraged we take our eyes off of God and put them on what the enemy wants us to see. Then, he is able to whisper lies and defeat to us because he has our complete attention.
So, how can we use Joy to fight against discouragement?
Can joy be a weapon?
Nehemiah 8:10 New International Version (NIV)
…the joy of the Lord is your strength
Did you hear that? Do you see why the enemy doesn’t want you to have joy?
The joy of the Lord IS your STRENGTH.
Joy is a weapon God gave us to have power and strength to stand when negative things come against us.
If you are full of joy, the peace of Christ that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. We HAVE to guard our heart and minds with the joy of the Lord.
Philippians 4:4,6-7 New Living Translation (NLT)
4 Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice!
6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 7 Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.
The only way to guard your heart and mind is intentionally spend time with God, praising Him and rejoicing in His goodness. Don’t worry; instead, pray about everything.
The source of joy…
Romans 15:13 New International Version (NIV)
13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace, as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
You see it? God fills us with joy and peace, as we trust in Him. Joy and peace come from keeping our trust in God fully and not on the things of this world.
However, when the enemy can get us to take our eyes off of God and put them on his nasty little ways, he can steal our joy and our peace. Then, we are no good to anyone. We become self focused, depressed and useless to the Kingdom.
Now, let’s flip that around.
When we DON’T let his negative ways steal our joy and peace and we fully trust God to know what is best for us, THEN we overflow with hope on to others. It’s like paying it forward.
The God of hope fills us with joy and peace, as we trust in Him even when adversity comes and in return we overflow that hope we have in Him onto others.
The purpose of joy…
It is our secret weapon against the enemy.
God loves to do things differently than most would expect. For example, He sent His Son to be born in a dirty, lowly manger as a helpless babe to a virgin girl.
God could have sent a Heavenly Host of His mightiest angels with flaming swords of fire to defeat sin and death but His ways are not like our ways (Is 55:8).
Jesus, the Son of The King of Kings willingly suffered and died to save sinners like you and me. Jesus defeated death once and for all and He is alive forevermore.
God uses our joy through adversity differently than the world would expect, also.
We follow in the procession of a conqueror and have the supernatural peace of Christ dwelling in us no matter what happens around us. Even though it doesn’t make sense to the world, we can choose to be joyful and not let the enemy have power.
We can rejoice, knowing the King of Kings, Our Creator, has our best interest at heart. We will come through hard times stronger and grow in our relationship with Him because we draw closer to Him.
When we remember who we are in Christ and become joy bringers instead of faultfinders, others around us in turn experience that joy and peace. This brings God glory and discourages the enemy.
Don’t let evil beat you down. Fear is a liar.
You are stronger than you think you are!
Draw close to God and allow Him to fill you with His strength and joy to guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus so that you overflow with hope.
The joy of the Lord is your strength, Neh. 8:10. Remember who and whose you are! Your identity is not in the things of this world. Your identity is in Christ.
Be encouraged friend!
1 John 4:4 New Living Translation (NLT)
4 But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world.
Praying you will pick up the weapon of joy during this season of Thanksgiving!
Love ya,
I wrote another post about joy in January. You can read it HERE. While written from a different perspective on joy than today, it was what God spoke to me at the time. God is cool like that.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2019 Shawna Novak
Beautifully written, Shawna. You’re so right. It’s very easy for us to take our eyes off of what matters most and focus on this sometimes seemingly crazy world. We become so absorbed in what’s going on around us and we try to control uncontrollable situations and we’re left wringing our hands and feeling unhappy.
Christ reminds us that he’s the only one that’s truly in control and when we hand our lives over to him, even the worst situations take on a different light.
Living day by day instead of projecting into the future has made a big difference for me. No one knows what the future holds…except him…and doing so only creates fear and worry…and we all know, those two rascals are two of our greatest “kill-joys”.
I am reminded of the little phrase in Bobby McFerrin’s song from many years ago…”Don’t worry…Be happy!” The first verse says, “In every life we have some trouble, but when you worry, you make it double…Don’t worry Be happy”.
Isn’t that the truth! Great read!
Kimberly
You are correct my friend. I got distracted for a bit but then I refocused. God is too good to let this world get us down. And I’ve got a new grand baby to look forward to! No time to be down. lol. Love ya, Shawna