Today, we're going to take a posture of peace by letting joy rise up in us.
Hi, I'm Lindsay Van Zale.
Posture is a podcast that serves as a short, audible fist bump to remind you that God is
in everything.
Together, we're going to be emboldened to take a daily posture of perfect peace.
In Hebrews chapter 15, verse 13, it says,
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.
Last week in episode 54, I mentioned that I believe God is developing and maturing His
joy in me right now, a fresher, deeper expression of His joy as I walk out this season.
And you know, joy and peace, they partner together in raising our expectation of God's
goodness in our lives.
That's hope, by the way, an expectation of God's goodness.
And they also partner in developing a deeper trust in Him.
And as I talked about last week with Graham Cook, and I will link that episode in case
you missed it, we talked about the fruit of the Spirit is who God is.
It is His characteristics.
And because we have God's empowering presence within us, His peace, joy, patience, those
things are already present within us.
So that means we're not looking to anything external to bring us peace or bring us joy.
Instead, we are confidently calling them to rise up within us.
And it's trust that brings joy and peace to the surface in us.
And you might ask, trust in what?
Trust in God's nature.
Trust in who God is, His unchanging, unfailing nature, no matter the circumstances.
As people of the kingdom, we are learning to live from the inside out.
First John 4.4 says, greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.
And honestly, I used to live backwards.
I used to let my negative circumstances influence my trust in God's nature and influence whether
I was going to be joyful or peaceful.
So it influenced whether I was going to experience God's nature.
Instead of allowing my trust in who God is to be the thing that influences my negative
circumstances or influences me in the midst of my negative circumstances.
And as you can imagine, this backwards thinking, unfortunately, led to me only having a greater
awareness and trust in what the negative circumstances could do to me instead of my being aware of
and trusting in who God was wanting to be for me in the midst of those negative circumstances.
And you know, no matter what situation we're facing, I believe there's a core fear.
And that is, where is this leading?
What is going to happen to me because of this circumstance or because of this person?
And I was so fixated on the potential path of where my pain was leading me instead of
being fully fixated on the promised future that his permanent presence guarantees and
being fixated on what was already available to me because of who he is.
And hear me out.
We don't ignore pain.
That is dangerous.
And I would never condone that.
And I talk about that in episode 39, and I'm going to link that for you to watch.
I encourage you to watch it.
We always face the pain, but we do so with God.
And we face the pain with a trust of who he is.
He is the one who makes peace and joy possible, not our circumstances resolving or our pain
ceasing.
If we waited for those things to happen, for us to be joyful or to be at peace, we'd be
waiting a long time, maybe forever.
And this is good news.
This is good news because God is never changing and our circumstances are.
So that means what our peace and our joy are founded in is secure.
It's never changing.
He's never changing.
I used to feel so guilty for expressing and experiencing joy in the midst of difficulty
because somberness felt like the responsible response.
It felt like that was the response of someone who had control of the situation.
We need to be somber.
We need to be serious.
We need to just keep it together.
Meanwhile, the one God who I had given full charge and control over my life, he's always
joyful and he's always at peace.
And I was afraid to reflect his character in this.
I don't get it.
I used to feel guilty for expressing joy and experiencing joy in the midst of difficulty
because honestly it just felt naive.
It felt vulnerable and it felt like I was letting my guard down because I thought it
was all up to me.
And Philippians 4 talks about how we should rejoice in the Lord always.
It talks about how we don't have to be anxious.
It says do not be anxious about anything.
It says in everything, by prayer, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.
And then it says, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, that will guard
your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
You know, anxiety, worry, stress, somberness, they're never good guards, but peace always
keeps us secure.
And we're going to talk more about joy and peace this week and their partnership.
So today I want you to practice letting joy rise up in you.
And if you're like, I don't know how to do that, a good starting point is to rejoice
in who God is.
Rejoice in his nature and allow joy to rise in that.
Tomorrow I'm going to share a testimony that recently happened to me in the midst of this
quarantine that illuminates the promise and the process of Philippians 4.
Have you ever had the opposite of a panic attack?
I did.
And I'm going to share more on that tomorrow.
The promise of perfect peace is found in Isaiah 26, 3.
And in Hebrew, it is shalom, shalom, meaning complete wholeness, nothing missing, nothing
broken.
This is who you are in Jesus.
Let's declare this together.
Today, I am kept in perfect peace.
With my whole heart, I trust the Lord.
I am strong.
I am victorious.
I am whole.
Remember, friend, you are a living testimony of Jesus' ultimate win, not because of anything
you did, but because of what he did for you.
With every step you take today, you're putting Jesus' victory on display and Satan's defeat
on replay.