Go out in Joy and be led forth in Peace

And let the peace of God rule in your hearts…singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord’ ~ Colossians 3:15-16 (NIV 2010)

We can look back now at what we have gathered from Isaiah 55 in the last two articles. The issue of getting our expectations right has to do with focussing our vision (our eyes), and that of getting our hearts right has to do with focussing our hearts. Now, this final exhortation from the last two verses of Isaiah 55 has to do with focussing our minds. Isaiah 55:12-13 says;

12 You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands.
13 Instead of the thorn-bush will grow the juniper,
and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.
This will be for the LORD’s renown,
for an everlasting sign,
that will endure forever.”

God does not promise that the days ahead will be trouble-free, but he promises to make the mountains of troubles and the hills of challenges to burst into song before you. Also that the tall trees of distractions will not succeed in hindering your advance, but instead they will clap their hands as they cheer you on into all of God’s will for your life.

He promises that the days ahead will not be days of labouring and producing a harvest of thorns. He promises that instead of the thornbush you will have a harvest of juniper. Whereas the thornbush is useless and a symbol of wasted labour, the juniper is a very useful type of tree widely distributed throughout the Northern hemisphere from which men have found a wide variety of benefits from culinary to medicinal uses. It symbolises healing, strength, athleticism, and fertility. God’s will is to make you strong and fertile. He wants to quicken every barren area of your life and grant you increased usefulness and fruitfulness. Instead of being a prickly brier, he promises to turn you into the myrtle that remains evergreen no matter what the weather is like.

These are glorious promises. But there are some things that have to be present in us for these things to follow. ‘You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace’ comes before these other manifestations. What comes first is important. It is as we go out daily in joy and are led forth by the peace of God that these things will happen. It is a pre-requisite to the manifestation of these promises. There are two important things that God has given us that we must guard jealously day by day if we desire to see all these glorious promises fulfilled:  namely, the joy of the Lord and the peace of the Holy Spirit. We must choose to walk every day in his joy no matter what happens and to let his peace lead us. His joy comes from his presence in us and does not depend on our circumstances. The peace of the Holy Spirit in our spirit-man is the primary way he leads his children. We must not lose his joy or his peace.

Now that is easier said than done! You cannot imagine the kind of intense struggle I have had in the past few days of this New Year in maintaining a walk in joy and peace. The enemy will fight a battle to steal our joy and peace through minor irritations and major catastrophes, so it is going to be challenging to walk consistently in God’s joy and be led by his peace. But it is possible if we depend on him. When Moses was faced with failure after his first visit to Pharaoh brought increased hardship for the Israelites, he did what we all have to learn to do: He returned to God (Exodus 5:22). In the face of discouragements let’s make it a habit to turn to the Lord immediately and not allow our joy or peace to be stolen. There is a battle for our minds. Will we count it all joy or will we roll over and swim in discouragement? Whatever it will take to rest in the Lord and keep his joy and peace, then do it. If you have to sing out loud at the top of your voice to hold onto your joy then do it. You see, if the devil cannot steal your joy, he cannot prevent these promises from being fulfilled in your life. So guard your joy and your peace at all costs.