REJOICE IN THE LORD ALWAYS

When you come to church remove all your pain, come with joy. No matter how painful you are the Bible says "Rejoice in the Lord all the days of your life." When you go under pain rejoice, when you go through hardships rejoice because God says "Give thanks to everything." When you rejoice, you know God loves you.

Happiness gives you gifts. When we go to our heavenly Father rejoicing we get more. When you go to him in bitter and in sorrow, He will not talk to you until you finish your anger. It is not good to go before God while you are furious because he will never give you your answer.

If you are furious, angry, bitter, in sorrow or frustrated expect sin to get you and to attack you. If you want to get out from sin be happy. Happiness generates the favor of God. As the Bible says “The joy of the Lord is my strength." When you are joyful, you are welcoming the joy from the Lord.

Examples of people who did great because of joy

In the bible nobody was happy and joyful like David. He managed to conquer every battle. He killed the lion, bear and goliath. In this world nobody has fought a fight like David.

No one has ever escaped death like David. Everyone who wanted to hurt him or to destroy him could not do so because he was happy. Happiness makes you conquer any power of the darkness. You need to give thanks to God in your heart for the way you are, you need to thank, glorify and rejoice God because you are walking, breathing, you can see through your eyes, hear through your ears, you can think, decide, do things with your hand, you can eat yourself.

In the Apostolic calling no one has done the best like Paul. Why? Because he was happy. Because of that God used him mightily. That is why he wrote many books concerning happiness, gifts of the Holy Spirit, the love of God, salvation, the power of God and how to be rich.

I see people getting furious because of little things. They don’t want to talk to others not to the Lord. Some people refuse to go to church because someone spoke nasty about them. So, who are you angry at? God or that person? You don’t come to church to meet somebody but you come to meet God, so be cheerful. When you come cheerful God will make the angels protect you from anybody who wants to hurt you so that you can remain joyful.

The joy of the Lord is the key to success. If you are not happy, riches will not come to you. If you do business and inside you are not happy that business will die. But if you do business and you are happy no matter how little you have that business will grow to the level that you can't even handle it. Pastors need to be happy so that the congregation can grow.

God gives you what you have now so that you can use those things to go further. Don’t let the devil uses his weapons to make you stagnant, a failure, frustrated, nobody, timid, go nowhere and turning back to your pasts.  You have your glory which someone else will be excited to see you. In the book of Daniel he said “We will shine like a star.” It means everyone must shine. You must reflect something very unique because we are not the same, i.e everyone has his own uniqueness. When you start exercising your uniqueness you will attract many people.

Many of you are so concentrated with what you are and not who you will be. There are things you need to do to make you different because change is mandatory to everyone who wants to advance. Don’t holds on to who you were in the past, God want you to reach a level of being like a star.

To get all these there is a price to pay. Paying the price is where the hardness is. People want easy things. There is no glory in easy things. There is glory in the hardest because the hardest are done by few people who take risks. For you to shine and become somebody you must consider the following:

Faithfulness

Obedience

Offering yourself

When you comply with the above, you will never be in the middle class, you will always be the highest and you will be the head. Giving yourself means you sow as a seed and planting yourself as seed. Hence you become a seed waiting for the harvest.

By Servant of God Apostle and Prophet Josephat Elias Mwingira, Efatha Church.