Bill Johnson - Rejoice Into Joy: Three Keys to Experiencing the Fullness of Heavens Joy

D ESTINY I MAGE B OOKS BY B ILL AND B ENI J OHNSON

Strengthen Yourself in the Lord
Supernatural Power of a Transformed Mind
Releasing the Spirit of Prophecy
The Way of Life
The Supernatural Power of Communion
Hosting the Presence
God is Good
When Heaven Invades Earth
The Happy Intercessor
Healthy & Free
Dreaming with God

Copyright 2021 Bill and Beni Johnson

All rights reserved. This book is protected by the copyright laws of the United States of America. This book may not be copied or reprinted for commercial gain or profit. The use of short quotations or occasional page copying for personal or group study is permitted and encouraged. Permission will be granted upon request. Unless otherwise identified, Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked AMP are taken from the Amplified Bible, Copyright 2015 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, CA 90631. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Scripture quotations marked TPT are taken from The Passion Translation, Copyright 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, www.thepassiontranslation.com. Used by permission of BroadStreet Publishing Group, LLC, Racine, Wisconsin, USA. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004, 2015. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version. All emphasis within Scripture quotations is the authors own. Please note that Destiny Images publishing style capitalizes certain pronouns in Scripture that refer to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and may differ from some publishers styles. Take note that the name satan and related names are not capitalized. We choose not to acknowledge him, even to the point of violating grammatical rules.

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Rejoice in the Lord always [delight, take pleasure in Him]; again I will say, rejoice!

Philippians 4:4 AMP

I will sing and greatly rejoice in Yahweh! My whole being vibrates with shouts of joy in my God! For he has dressed me with salvation and wrapped me in the robe of his righteousness! I appear like a bridegroom on his wedding day, decked out with a beautiful sash, or like a radiant bride adorned with sparkling jewels.

Isaiah 61:10 TPT

IN PURSUIT OF JOY

W hy is it right to sing, shout, dance, and leap? Why does God seem to want these radical expressions more than silent, awed reverence? While there is certainly a time for the latter, acts of celebration get way more press in the psalmists descriptions of how we approach God. The reasonGod is a God to celebrate. All His actions and thoughts toward us are extravagant expressions of His love, kindness, goodness, and delight in us; He gives it all not only to bless us for a moment, but to invite us into the deeper blessing of knowing Him.

He delights in us, so He wants us to delight in Him. He rejoices over us with singing (see Zeph. 3:17), so He wants us to rejoice in Him with singing. When we give to Him what He gives to us, we step further into relationship with Him, deepening our heart connection with the source of life.

Not only that, but when we do what He is doing, aligning our bodies as well as our spirits and souls with what He has said, there is a release of His nature that flows to us in that place of intimacy. The Holy Spirit is the most joyful Person in existence, and joy is one of the primary expressions of His Kingdom in our lives (see Rom. 14:17). His command to rejoice always is really an expression of His desire for us to have joy! He is simply telling us how to receive it. We not only rejoice because we have joywe rejoice in our pursuit of joy.

AN EXPRESSION OF FAITH

I t certainly requires faith to rejoice when thats the last thing you feel like doing or seems to make sense in the face of your present circumstances. It doesnt take much faith to hang your head and sing Thou Art Worthy when youre really just thinking, I am worthless!

Truly rejoicing in Him requires that you stand on the truth that you are already accepted by Him where you are. Rejoicing requires you to acknowledge that His goodness and faithfulness are more real than your present difficulty. It especially requires you to agree that your life is not really about you!

Only the rejoicing that requires you to agree with Gods perspective on your situation is the sacrifice of praise that pleases Him and has the power to transform you. It is the expression of faith. Sometimes that rejoicing is what David describes in Psalm 2:11: rejoice with trembling. In other words, you dont have to feel full of faith to rejoiceyou just have to do it.

THANKSGIVING, PRAISE, WORSHIP

W hile the natures of praise and thanksgiving are different, they should always go together, because they are sequential steps toward strengthening ourselves in His manifest presence. Psalm 100:4 says we enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. This verse is a road map into the presence of God. Thus, our goal should be to sustain thanks and praise until our whole being is alive to His presence. But we also have to remember in that moment that the focus doesnt change from ministering to God to our getting what we need.

Thanksgiving and praise are tools to strengthen ourselves, not because they help us get something from the Lord but because they reconnect us to our primary purposeto minister to Him in worship. They bring us into His presence, and true worship is something that only happens in that place of communion with His presence. In worship, the sacrifice is no longer physical expression or verbal declarations. We are the sacrifice. Fire always falls on sacrifice. And when we are the sacrifice, we cannot help but be changed.