by Matt Sorger
I love what Robert Schuller has shared regarding this: “Joy is not the absence of suffering. It is the presence of God.”11 This is exactly right. We can never fully escape suffering. And some people have a lot more of it than others. But when our joy comes from the presence of God, it’s unshakable.
Brother Lawrence, a Parisian monk from the fifteenth century, also deeply believed that our joy is connected to our relationship with God. He believed that it was a great deception to think that times of prayer were different from other times. Brother Lawrence maintained a constant connection to the presence of God in his daily activities. He accomplished this by simply staying in an endless conversation with God. This gave him access to continual joy.
I experienced this very thing when I traveled to the mountains of China into the earthquake region of Chengdu. Over 4.8 million people were left homeless from this natural calamity, and more than 80,000 lost their lives. I witnessed an entire city buried under rubble as the surrounding mountains and hills avalanched in on it. It was a burial ground. Yet high in the mountains was a small school with about one hundred children who were left orphaned in the earthquake. With no more earthly parents, they came to this school to be cared for. As I traversed up this mountain path to visit the children, I was met by so many little faces who had been left all alone in the world. During their school recess, we all went outside. Surrounded by rubble and debris, we played a game of tag. I will never forget the laughter that filled the air among so much pain and loss. Those little smiling faces beamed with joy as these kids ran into my arms for me to swing them around. Joy in the midst of pain and loss. Joy that had nothing to do with their natural surroundings. Joy that superseded the natural luxuries of life.
The Anointing Destroys the Yoke
There is a supernatural element to the joy we can experience in God. There may be times that God, in His infinite love and mercy, will see the pit we find ourselves in and will overwhelm us with His joy in order to bring a breakthrough, deliverance, or healing. This is the special anointing of joy that not only breaks the yoke but also demolishes it.
You have loved righteousness [You have delighted in integrity, virtue, and uprightness in purpose, thought, and action] and You have hated lawlessness (injustice and iniquity). Therefore God, [even] Your God (Godhead), has anointed You with the oil of exultant joy and gladness above and beyond Your companions.
—HEBREWS 1:9
The anointing is a very powerful gift from God that we cannot overlook. Some may try to live life without it, but they will only get so far. Self-will and discipline may be able to achieve some things, but God’s anointing goes much further than what any person can achieve in the natural. God’s anointing adds His “super” to our “natural.” One touch of the manifest presence and power of God can change everything in your life. That is why I place such a high value on the tangible anointing of the Holy Spirit. I’ve seen God work emotional miracles through His presence.
Sometimes the greatest miracles are not physical; they are spiritual and emotional. It’s a horrible thing to walk around with a physical sickness. It’s equally horrible to walk around with an emotional and spiritual sickness, an internal affliction that keeps people bound in depression, hopelessness, fear, and self-pity. This emotional sickness can be tormenting and completely disabling, causing people to not be able to leave their homes, interact with other people, or move forward with their lives. Even in church, where everything is supposed to be good, people suffer very deeply with things. Because we feel it’s wrong to have problems, we hide our battles in secrecy. But it’s that very secrecy that keeps us in bondage and pain.
Confess to one another therefore your faults (your slips, your false steps, your offenses, your sins) and pray [also] for one another, that you may be healed and restored.
—JAMES 5:16
Sharing your struggles with a trusted friend, leader, or family member who can pray with you brings in the light and exposes any hidden darkness. This brings tremendous freedom. Church must be a safe place where we unconditionally love one another to wholeness and freedom.
Supernatural Joy
I personally have benefited from the supernatural power of joy. I remember my first time was when I was a young teenager. I had just recently come into a relationship with God. I can remember sharing with my mom that I felt so discouraged about something. I felt so down and depressed. My mom began to pray for me. As I lay on my bed, suddenly I began to laugh. I said, “Mom, why am I laughing?” I didn’t understand it at all. I went from feeling depressed one moment to laughing the next. I laughed that depression of soul right out of myself. It was a supernatural joy that was stronger than my soulish emotions.
For those who may wonder if God would ever make us laugh, let’s look at Job. If there was one person who needed to laugh, it was Job! Job 8:21 says, “He will yet fill your mouth with laughter [Job] and your lips with joyful shouting.”
I experienced this again a few years later. I was still in my teen years. Teen years can be full of drama. Teenagers are going through so many changes, inside and out, that everything can become a big thing to them. I was having one of those days, and I was seriously troubled and depressed about something. Generally, I am a happy person, but throughout my life I have had moments of some pretty deep darkness. I was attending a Christmas program in a church one night during Christmastime. The lady was singing “Mary, Did You Know?” on stage about Mary giving birth to Jesus, and I was thinking, “I don’t care if Mary knew.” I was so depressed. I couldn’t smile or even enjoy the show. They gave an altar call at the end for people to come to know God. I just sat in my seat depressed.
After the altar call, my friends got up to leave. As I sat in my seat, something wonderfully supernatural happened to me. Suddenly, for no natural reason whatsoever, I began to laugh. I laughed and laughed and laughed. The service was over. No one was praying for me. I had never seen anyone “laugh in the Spirit” before. I really didn’t know what was happening. As I got up to leave, I staggered down the aisle in the church and could barely walk. I then just fell sideways into one of the rows of chairs and lay there laughing! I laughed for about twenty minutes. My friends had left the building. I couldn’t help myself. The joy that I was experiencing was truly beyond me. It was God’s joy being released in me. When I got up, all my depression was completely gone! I was free. God’s anointing had liberated my emotions so that I could be free in His joy. Oh, how wonderful is the joy of God that breaks off the junk that tries to weigh our souls and emotions down!
This kind of supernatural joy is beyond our ability to produce or even choose it. There are times God’s power will touch your life and just break through where you are. It is beyond the realm of human control. It is God stepping in and saying no more to the pain and depression you feel. I have never been able to manufacture or produce this kind of joy at will. God knows what we need when we need it and at times will choose to touch us this way. It is a very special anointing from the Holy Spirit.
Ten Thousand Pounds Lifted!
I have conducted meetings where almost entire rooms of people have received this holy laughter. It’s an amazing thing to watch. But there are times God will minister to select individuals this way. I remember one meeting where I was preaching in Canada. During my message a woman began to laugh. It was as if she could not help herself. Others may have thought, “She shouldn’t be laughing. That’s rude. It’s distracting the preacher.” Well, I knew that it was the Holy Spirit and that something glorious was happening. I just let her laugh. She laughed through the entire message.
She came back the next night and shared her experience with us. She told me that when she was a child, she had been bounced around between nine foster homes and had been sexually abused for years. She could never even remember smiling, let alone laughing. This meeting was the first time she ever laughed. She was so full of pain, hurt, anger, and rage that she was held captive by her own pain and despair. When she went home th
at night, she still couldn’t stop laughing. She woke her children and husband up with it. She giggled all night long. She told me that when she woke up the next day she felt like “ten thousand pounds had lifted off her life.” She felt joy for the first time, and all the anger and bitterness were gone. She laughed it right out!
We see this powerful anointing of joy in Isaiah 61:3: “...the oil of joy instead of mourning, the garment [expressive] of praise instead of a heavy, burdened, and failing spirit.”
The Power of Laughter
Don’t underestimate the power of God’s joy in your life through laughter. Laughter is a powerful God-given force that brings freedom, healing, and restoration spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Laughter is good like medicine. That’s why I love when God enables me to bring laughter to people when I preach. One time a man exclaimed out loud as the room was erupting in laughter, “This is medicine!” It is. The world is full of so much pain and sorrow. We need a good laugh every now and then. The more you can laugh at yourself and at life, the happier you will be. Sometimes you just can’t be so serious. Be contagious with joy!
A happy heart is good medicine and a cheerful mind works healing, but a broken spirit dries up the bones.
—PROVERBS 17:22
Not only does God seem to have this perspective, but also there has been scientific research done as well on how laughter affects our lives. It actually keeps our bodies strong and resistant to disease. Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class James Botkin of the behavioral health unit in Naval Hospital Yokosuka in Japan has found in his research that “humor is equally helpful to our mental health and the way we deal with stress and worry. A good laugh exercises many muscles of the body and causes the brain to release endorphins. These ‘feel good’ brain chemicals raise both our mood and our coping abilities. Sometimes things don’t seem as bad when looked through the eyes of humor.”12
Everything in Balance
While we are talking about the positive affect of laughter, joy, and exercise in our lives, I want to encourage you to live a balanced life. This includes getting proper sleep and rest. In a recent Time article on sleep, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine revealed that the optimum sleep time per night is seven to eight hours.13 When you miss your sleep, it’s much easier to get cranky and irritable. It’s hard to be happy when you are always dragging and tired. It’s also very important that you balance work and play. Make sure to schedule in down time to relax and have some time for yourself and with your family. This can be a challenge for people who are very vision motivated. But proper rest helps you to refuel and increases your levels of joy.
Everything must stay balanced for you to experience God’s ultimate joy in your daily life. These are built-in principles that cannot be ignored. And never forget your true and ultimate source of joy—God! He’s with you every moment of every day.
Activate and Release Your Joy
Why not start today and release the power of God’s joy within you. Here are some ways you can be contagious.
1. Smile at ten people.
2. Share a funny joke with a friend.
3. Compliment and encourage three people.
4. Spread a positive uplifting word about someone.
5. Write an encouraging note to someone who needs it.
As you spread the joy of God, you can kill the germs of depression, loneliness, isolation, rejection, and so much more. So go ahead; spread it to as many people as you can. Be contagious!
CHAPTER 13
The Power of Generosity
Pay It Forward
JANET WAS ON her way to a friend’s house when she drove by a man digging through a Dumpster looking for food. She thought to herself, “If he is still there on my way home, I am going to go to McDonald’s and get a gift certificate for him to get some hot food.” As she drove home an hour later, he was still there sitting out in the cold. She immediately went to McDonald’s and got him a ten-dollar gift certificate. She gave it to him, and he told her that no one had ever really cared about him and that because of her, he believed there was still good in the world. He told her that his name was John and that just a few years earlier he was living a “normal” life, but he lost everything after he got a divorce. As she was leaving, he asked what payment she wanted for the gift certificate. She said, “Nothing. Just keep the chain going!” She got back in her car and cried, not because she was sad, but because she was so overwhelmed with joy.
Based on a novel written by Catherine Ryan Hyde, “pay it forward” is a selfless action plan that has sparked a worldwide social movement,1 but Jesus taught this concept of selfless giving much earlier than that. In Matthew 25:34–40, Jesus revealed that every time you do something for someone who can never repay you on the earth, you are doing it for Him. When you clothe the naked, you are clothing Christ. When you visit the sick or those in prison, you are visiting Him.
It’s time to start a new movement of selfless giving. We can set off a chain reaction that will spread from one person to another like a domino effect. One of the greatest ways to release not only God’s power but also His genuine heart to the world is through giving. Generosity is what enables us to fully release God’s influence through our lives, making a paramount difference in our world and leaving a legacy behind us. Generosity will cause you to freely give what God has freely given to you. It is through this act of giving that multitudes can be impacted through your life.
One of the greatest joys of my life is the Girls Home we have been able to build as a ministry in Chennai, India. I know that after my earthly journey is over and I have completed God’s will, that Girls Home will continue on, reaching further and longer than my own earthly years ever could. Generosity empowers you to leave a lasting legacy! Thanks to the generous and loving seeds of friends and partners of our ministry, we have been able to successfully rescue girls off the street and save them from a life of hopelessness, abuse, and despair. Each year we also rally our friends and partners to send Christmas gifts and donations to these precious, beautiful children. There is no greater joy than seeing someone’s life completely transformed because of a heart that loves to give.
I will never forget my very first evangelistic meeting on the road. I had just made the transition from pastoral to evangelistic ministry. God had so clearly confirmed to me His direction and will that it made it easier to take this radical step of faith. As in every step of faith, there was a big risk involved. Stepping out in obedience to God’s call cost me everything. When God began to call me to a traveling miracle ministry, I had to leave everything that was familiar and comfortable behind. There were many risks and fears I had to face head-on. There was the risk of not succeeding in what I felt God was calling me to do. I had so many questions: Would doors open for me to travel? Would I have enough money to live? Was my ministry going to succeed? My step of faith was a sink-orswim situation. Thankfully as I obeyed God, He was right there with me each step of the way! I learned an important principle early on that set the course for my life and ministry and moved me into a supernatural dimension of God’s provision for all He had called me to do.
The Power of Firstfruits
It was in my first evangelistic meeting that God taught me about the power of generosity. During the meeting God began to release physical healing and miracles. I still remember that service where God gave me a word of knowledge for a woman with an ovarian cyst. As I called it out, the fire of God went into her belly, completely dissolving the cyst! I was young, and my faith for miracles was high. I was very childlike in my faith before God.
He spoke to me that day. I felt a very distinct impression from God to take the offering I would receive in that service and sow it into another mission’s ministry. I knew exactly whom to sow it to. I loved what Heidi Baker was doing for Jesus in Mozambique, Africa. God spoke to me, “I have called you to go to the nations. You are going to need supernatural provision for this ministry.” I knew in my heart that by planting a seed into Heidi’s ministry, I cou
ld believe God for a harvest of provision for my own missions works that would unfold in the months and years to come. God gave me a specific amount. He told me five hundred dollars. I know that might not sound like a lot, but in those days to me it was.
After the service I counted the offering. It came to two hundred fifty dollars! I said, “God, you told me five hundred dollars. There is only two hundred fifty dollars here!” Then I heard, “Well, you have a bank account, don’t you? Use that money.” My mind responded, “Well, yes, I have a bank account, but I also don’t have a job. That’s my only money to live on!” God said, “Give it.” So I gave it. God told me it would be a firstfruits offering for my ministry. I had no idea what a firstfruits offering was, so I looked it up in Proverbs 3:9.
I was honoring God with my very first increase as a ministry. I knew that as I honored God with this portion, He would always take care of me financially. This giving was not legalistic. It was birthed out of a revelation of God’s heart and Word, which gave me His faith to trust Him as my source. Sure enough, just a few months later, God opened our first door to go to India on our first missions crusade. On that crusade we saw thousands of Hindus and Muslims give their hearts to Jesus. And God provided every penny we needed for it. I sowed into missions, and God provided for our missions. This would become the pattern of our life of faith in ministry.
God loves a cheerful giver (2 Cor. 9:7). You can be so happy when you give because you can expect by faith that what you sow will come back to you in exponential ways. Our joy in giving reveals our heart of faith and trust in God. People who get offended about money don’t have this revelation. They are stuck in their natural thinking, and as a result, they will be limited to their own natural provision. When our generosity is a result of true heart faith, there is so much joy in it. It’s exciting to give to God. When I give, faith comes alive in my heart that God is going to release supernatural blessings in my life.