Believing Produces RejoicingTuesday, June 21, 2016

"for I have learned how to be content (satisfied to the point where I am not disturbed or disquieted) in whatever state I am. I know how to be abased and live humbly in straightened circumstances, and I know also how to enjoy plenty and live in abundance. I have learned in any and all circumstances the secret of facing every situation, whether well-fed or going hungry, having a sufficiency and enough to spare or going without and being in want." Philippians 4:11-12 (AMP)

 

It didn't matter what people said to him. It didn't matter what was going on around him. Paul's faith and expectation were in God, not people or circumstances. And because of that, he never lost his joy. The world didn't give it to him and the world couldn't take it away.

My wife and I learned that lesson when we were in Bible college. Sometimes I've heard people complain that they were having such problems that they didn't even have a turkey for Thanksgiving. Well, neither did we, but we decided not to let that turkey keep us from being eagles!

On Thanksgiving of 1976, we were away from home at Bible College in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Kim was working full-time. I was working part-time and going to college full-time. We wanted to go home, but we couldn't do that because we didn't have money for gas. We wanted to have a traditional turkey for dinner with all the trimmings, but we couldn't do that because we didn't have money for a traditional turkey dinner. But we decided to rejoice and Thanksgiving dinner anyway! We literally put our pennies and nickels together, went down to the grocery store, and bout a Totino's frozen pizza. (To give you and idea of how little money we're talking about, I just saw that same pizza on sale the other day for 79 cents!) It wasn't a traditional turkey dinner, but that didn't matter. It was dinner! So we rejoiced, with confident expectation that God was working in our lives and that brighter days were ahead for us.

If we're in faith and we're in expectation, we'll have joy. If won't matter what we have for Thanksgiving dinner. We'll be able to eat Totino's frozen pizza and rejoice because God has given us expectations for our future. It won't matter what's under the Christmas tree, because we know Who was on "the tree" -Jesus! And because of what He accomplished of that tree (the cross), all of the promises of God are now available to us.

 

Excerpt from Pastor Blunt's Book: "The Power of Expectation".