Yes, great tribulation is coming onto the WHOLE EARTH and all who survive in its midst will do so because they are BEING INTIMATE WITH GOD in an active, personal (not figurative) way. Those who only have a form of godliness but have no power, have no personal contact with HIS LOVE dwelling in their Hearts on a day-to-day basis … well, they’ll have no real strength to survive what is fast coming and is in many ways already upon us. The keys to this intimacy are having His Joy, Peace, Hope and Love ... which we receive from Him when we have authentic Faith.

I heard the Lord say recently that, “Faith is the fight against fear.” I didn’t know exactly what He was talking about, although it sounded like something you hear a lot … that ‘faith is the opposite of fear,’ or ‘fear is faith in bad things happening.’ But I can now more clearly see that fear prevents us from trusting God enough to walk in faith in His promises of peace, protection and provision. And since it is His Perfect Love that casts out (displaces) fear, we first have to let God’s Love have its purifying, restoring, transforming work in us before we are free to walk strong in authentic faith.

I also heard Him explain that without a hopeful expectation we’re not actually standing in faith either. (As in Hebrews 11:1) Because when a HOPE is a REALITY to us, we get EXCITED about it … and THAT is Faith. But hearing things like that always used to make me feel anxious because I felt I was supposed to force myself in my own strength to ‘just believe’ and somehow always be happy in order to be in real faith — and that was usually the main problem I was having to deal with to begin with! I gradually understood that I do need HIS HELP just to believe the astounding things He tells me to believe Him for, and that’s because He is both the author and perfector of our faith! (Hebrews 12:2) (And I recommend Mitt Jefford’s ‘The Secret Equation of Life’ on www.etpv.org to understand this better.)

Then, often hearing (and slowly learning) that the Joy of the Lord is my Strength (Nehemiah 8:10) gave me some real hope at last because I started to understand that my own strength was not going to bring me to where I wanted to go — and that’s OK because it’s a normal place to start. But then just how do we get this supernaturally powerful Joy that will be the strength we need to walk in real hope and faith?

And also I was praying recently about dealing with people who are going through transition — dealing with them and not pulling my hair out ... I mean, it’s hard enough to go through transition yourself, let alone having to live, work and serve with people who are going through it as well. But what the Lord shared with me was this: First we need a clear VISION of what they (we) are BECOMING. This is the positive result of God’s good plans (or prophecies) for us. We need this vision to give us a focus for our hopes (expectancy, optimism) and direction (assurance, confidence) for our prayers.

Second, we need PATIENCE while things are worked out. Third, we need GOD’S WISDOM to conduct ourselves well during the process. But then thinking about all this I suddenly saw how these things all connect: faith, hope, expectation, a vision from God, peace, and the supernatural joy that is our strength.

Hope, Joy, Vision of Peace

The King James version renders Proverbs 29:18 as “Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” This is the way this verse is most often quoted. Other versions render it as, “Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained.” Being unrestrained, or unfocused, means the people are aimless and will not succeed in accomplishing the important tasks that a vision is needed to achieve. When that vision is for salvation, or other core life goals, then yes, indeed the people will perish without such a vision.

But what kind of vision do the people really need? Just some great idea, a good plan to coordinate people’s labor? No, what we need is GOD’S VISION.

And it is noteworthy that the LAW mentioned in the second part of this verse is not merely the “commandments” or rules of morality. God’s WILL is His LAW, and that means if God’s Will is that we share in a heavenly inheritance, that goal is an expression of the Law. If His Will is to cover us under His wings, to empower us to overcome all spiritual wickedness through His Son, Jesus, then that is also the Law. If His Will is that we preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, heal the sick and cast out demons, then that too is the Law. So ‘keeping the law’ is basically following God’s Will for our lives.

Also, we can clearly see that God’s ‘Vision’ for us is His ‘Will’ or ‘Plans’ for us, and we know from Jeremiah 29:11 that God does indeed have plans for us, and that they are good. They are for our welfare, and not for our calamity, but to give us a future and a hope!

Knowing His Will gives us a focus to live by, and a hopeful theme to apply against the chaos and confusion of the fallen world all around us. His Vision for us is revealed to us in personal prophecy but also through the many promises in the Bible which are all given to us in Christ — promises such as those given to Abraham, and Moses, David and Isaiah all vest in our inheritance in Christ, as Paul said very plainly throughout Romans, and also in such verses as Galatians 3:29: “And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.” And also as Peter said in 2 Peter 1:2-4, that through personally / intimately KNOWING Him we gain such grace, peace, all things pertaining to life and godliness, and every great and precious promise.

We are the ones to whom these promises will be fulfilled if we only hear, believe and trust in Christ because they are in Him and He is in us. Again, these wonderful things are received by us when we KNOW Christ, and understand and believe His promises — and that is another way of understanding what Faith is. So faith is not some ‘optional’ way to get stuff from God; no, it is the means of our very salvation — because it is how we receive ANY promise from Him. And it is an active hope, not a passive resignation or intellectual statement of doctrine.

But the real beauty here is that if we have a firm handle on these promises of God’s Vision for us then it will give us Peace — which is actually what ‘Jerusalem’ literally means, the name of the capital city where God’s people dwell means the ‘Vision of Peace.’ So if we seize hold of HIS PLANS knowing they pertain to us, we will ‘abide’ in them, and if we do this, we will naturally inhabit the ‘REST’ of GOD’s PEACE — not the peace of a political truce, but a supernatural reality of peace based on seeing God’s Good Plans for us — a True Spiritual Jerusalem. And this reality will give us Joy — a joy based on the revelation that HIS promises are a HOPE to us ... and THAT is our Strength.

God’s supernatural Joy comes from Him directly as we abide in Him, as a fruit of His Spirit into our spirits as we mature in Him, but is also the product of KNOWING HIS GOOD PLANS FOR US.

So Hope, Faith, Peace, Joy and seeing the Vision of His Good Plans for us are all linked … and the glue that holds them all together is God’s love for us. A love that has been proven to us by Christ’s sacrifice, explained to us in promises in the Bible, often reinforced by personal prophecy, and enacted to us by the Holy Spirit.

The Joy of the Lord is our strength. Without which we may very well be among those who FALL during trial. The hope is free, the joy is free, the faith is free … but we have to connect with the Giver to realize and receive it.

Edward Johnson, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it