There’s no such thing as “toxic positivity” in the Kingdom of God, there is only the joy of the Lord.
And it’s a joy that strengthens us, not poisons us.
Transcript
Today, we are going to take a “Posture of Peace” by embracing this truth. It is the joy of the Lord that is our strength.
Posture is a short, audible fist bump to remind you, God is with you in everything. Together, we’re going to be emboldened to take a daily posture of perfect peace.
So there are a lot of headlines and articles and social media content out there right now about toxic positivity, or toxic optimism. And at first I was like, “What?” Leave it to the world to make positivity a negative thing. But I wanna say this, I’m actually not mad, I’m not frustrated at the world for doing this. For coining this phrase, for calling it out, Jesus is not their King. They have not yet surrendered to His Lordship so they are left to govern themselves and in a state of self-reliance.
Yes, positivity can easily be perverted and cause major damage. Ultimately, self-empowerment, self-righteousness, leads to destruction. Jesus told His disciples in Matthew 16, He said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple, must deny themselves and take up their cross, and follow me.” And then He said, “Whoever wants to save their life, will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me, will find it.” If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you are in this world, but you are not of it. So do not adopt the world’s language or mindset or way of life. It may be their truth, but it is not your truth. You are called to think on things above and you have been empowered to do so because you have been given the mind of Christ.
This is such good news, there is no toxic positivity in the kingdom of God. There is only the joy of the Lord and it is a joy that strengthens us, not poisons us. As people of the kingdom, we have been given the divine authority of being displays of God’s splendor here on Earth, and God is the most joyful being ever. We need to not just know about His joy, we need to know it, we need to experience the joy of the Lord. If we did know it, we would never be weak again because it is an ongoing supply of strength. This is not the word of some positivity guru, this is the word of God. Nehemiah 8:10 tells us the joy of the Lord is your strength. Now has it ever occurred to you that God could have chosen anything to be the thing that strengthens us, I mean He is God. He could’ve made it a complicated formula. He could’ve made it a bunch of hoops that we had to jump through, but He chose His joy to be the thing that strengthens us.
Our God is so kind. With this in mind, I wanna read two scriptures. 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18 says this. Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. And then one that we read before, James 1:2-4, count it all joy. When you meet various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces patience and let patience have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. There have been so many times in my life when I have read these scriptures and not let them have any effect on me. Instead, I have defaulted to complaining or offense, or bitterness or worry or rage or anxiety or fear or panic because I thought those were the normal responses, and I thought the joy was not a normal response. In fact, I had adopted the belief of the world, and believed that joy was not a responsible response in a world full of pain. That joy was somehow toxic or inappropriate in the midst of suffering, but joy is the most normal thing in the kingdom. If you wanna be a person of consequence in the kingdom, if you wanna be a display of His splendor here on Earth, you need to replace every negative with the amazing truth of God’s words and promises.
Jesus died to give you that right. He died to empower you to live like Him and to inherit every promise of God. 2 Corinthians 1:2 says, “In Christ, all promises of God are yes and amen to the glory of God through us.” Now, notice I said, “Replace every negative,” not ignore, not avoid every negative. Jesus didn’t avoid sick people, He didn’t deny that people were sick or that sickness was real, but He didn’t let sickness have power over Him. He took power over the sickness and He brought healing. Jesus never let the negativity He faced in this world overshadow the reality of the kingdom, and He didn’t keep the kingdom to Himself. He didn’t leave people to their hopelessness. There’s no new evil under the sun. It’s not like we’re facing something now in 2020 that Jesus never faced. He was tempted, He was tested, He was grieved, just like you and I are in this world, but He did not let the power of negativity ever have authority over Him. He was never displaced by evil, He displaced evil. And through His death and resurrection He stripped all authority that evil had over us, and He shared His victory with us, and He gave us His authority here on earth. And Jesus did not dread this mission. He delighted in bringing the kingdom of God to earth.
Let’s not allow the 2020 narrative of self-pity or self-righteousness rule our heart and minds. Let’s not lower our expectations of what Jesus’s finished work accomplished for us. Things are not easy right now, but they are not hopeless. Things are not great, but God is great. So let’s delight in His greatness today. Here’s a headline for you today. The joy of the Lord is your strength. Today, wholeheartedly pursue and experience with God’s truth.
The promise of “Perfect Peace” is found in Isaiah 26:3. In Hebrew it is shalom shalom, meaning complete wholeness, nothing missing, nothing broken. This is who you are in Jesus because of Jesus. You are a living testimony of Jesus’s ultimate win with every step you take today, you’re putting Jesus’s victory on display and satan’s defeat on replay.