The Word tells us to “count it all joy when
we fall into divers temptations” (James 1:2) or,
as the Greek text says, “into different trials
and tribulations.” What does the Word say
about joy? There is a difference between joy and
happiness. Happiness is controlled by the
condition or the comfort of the five physical
senses. Joy is not. The Bible says that joy is a
fruit of the spirit. It is a spiritual force—it is
born inside the human heart. We read in
Nehemiah 8:10 that the joy of the Lord is
our strength, so we can count it strength
when these trials and tribulations come our
way. Don’t count it defeat—count it strength!
Don’t count it negative—count it affirmative!
Jesus said, “Ask, and ye shall receive, that your
joy may be full” (John 16:24). Count it
answered prayer.

To count it all joy does not mean that you
are to thank God because your child is sick.
Let’s look at a portion of the Scripture here
that is often misunderstood.

Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing.
In every thing give thanks: for this
is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning
you. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)
Some of us have read this verse and
thought, “The will of God is for me to give
thanks for everything.” That is not true. That
thing or circumstance
is not the will of God for you—giving
thanks is the will of God. When
you praise God and give Him thanks in the
midst of your situation, you step under the
protective umbrella of the will of God. You
may not know what the Word says about
your particular situation, but the Word does
say to give thanks. Then, while you are under
that protective umbrella, Satan can’t touch you.

You may ask, “How do you count it all joy, Sister
Copeland?” I had a good opportunity to do this one
night when my little daughter had a high
fever. I went into her room, laid hands on
her and prayed, “Father, in the Name of
Jesus, I count it all joy to prove once again
that the Word is real and filled with power.
I’m a faith man, and I’m not moved by what
I see. I’m turning her over to You, and I
believe that You will take care of her in Jesus’
Name. Now, I just praise You and thank You
for her healing.” I didn’t praise God for her
fever because it wasn’t hers and God didn’t
give it to her. Jesus bore her sickness and
disease. If it belonged to anyone, it belonged
to Satan, who was trying to put it on her.

I have accepted Calvary as the sacrifice
that paid the price for my total redemption—
from sin, sickness, poverty, and death. I
believe that and I stand on it. I have certain
rights, called righteousness, in the kingdom
of God and one of these is the right to a
healthy body. Jesus has provided it for me,
and I take hold of it with my faith.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

The reason we haven’t seen more of that
kind of thing is that until recently, the Body
of Christ has put very little emphasis on joy.
There was even a time when we thought the
more grief-stricken you were during church,
the more spiritual you were.

There is nothing further from the truth.
God is full of joy. Jesus is a man of joy. So
if we’re going to follow after Him, we’ll have
to be full of joy too!

Joy used to be my weakest area, spiritually.
I spent so much time majoring on faith that
I didn’t pay much attention to it. But the
Lord eventually taught me that you can’t live
by faith without joy.

That’s because it takes strength to live by
faith. We’re surrounded by a world that is
flowing toward death. The natural pull of it
is always negative. When you leave things
alone and don’t work against that negative
flow, they always get worse—not better. If
you leave a garden unattended, it dies for
lack of water or gets taken over by weeds.
If you leave a house unattended, the paint
peels off and the boards begin to rot.

To move toward life you must constantly
swim upstream. If you ever get too weak
spiritually to do that, you’ll find yourself
being swept back toward sickness, lack or
some other form of defeat. So you can never
afford to run out of strength.

No wonder the Apostle Paul wrote,
“Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say,
Rejoice” (Philippians 4:4)! To rejoice means
to re-joy, to back up your spiritual truck and
get another load of it.

Paul understood the link between joy and
strength. That’s why he prayed for the
Colossians to be “strengthened with all might,
according to [God’s] glorious power, unto all
patience and longsuffering with joyfulness”

(Colossians 1:11). If you were to diagram that
sentence and take out the intervening phrases,
you would find it actually says we are strengthened
with all might with joyfulness!

Paul reaffirmed what was true in
Nehemiah’s day under the Old Covenant is
still true today under the New Covenant. The
joy of the Lord is our strength!

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

Read Colossians 1:11 again and you’ll
see it is that joy-inspired strength, which
enables us to be patient and long-suffering.
(So, if you’ve been running short of patience
lately, check your joy supply. That could be
what you’re lacking.)

Read Ephesians 6:10 and you’ll see it
takes that same strength to operate your
spiritual armor. If you don’t have the joy of
the Lord, you’ll eventually get too weak to
wear it!

The fact is, joy and the strength it
provides are far more vital than we ever
imagined. Study Ephesians 3:16-19 and you’ll
see what I mean. There Paul prays:

That [God] would grant you, according
to the riches of his glory, to be
strengthened with might by his Spirit
in the inner man; that [the Anointed
One and His Anointing] may dwell in
your hearts by faith; that ye, being
rooted and grounded in love, may be
able to comprehend with all saints
what is the breadth, and length, and
depth, and height; and to know the
love of [the Anointed One and His
Anointing], which passeth knowledge,
that ye might be filled with all the
fulness of God.

According to those verses, we can’t abide
in the anointing without joy. We can’t
comprehend the love of God without joy. We
can’t be filled with all the fullness of God
without joy. We can’t do any of those things
without joy because we simply wouldn’t be
strong enough!

Can you see now why joy is such a major
force in this end-time move of God? Even
more importantly, can you see why joy must
be a major force in your life if you’re to be
a part of that move?

“Oh yes, Brother Copeland, I do. So I’m
planning to attend every Holy Ghost meeting
within 100 miles of my house.”
That’s great. But, frankly, even if you do,
it won’t be enough. You see, as wonderful as
it is to be in services where there is Holy
Ghost laughter, you need joy all the time.

And since you can’t carry Kenneth E. Hagin
or Rodney Howard-Browne around in your
pocket, you’d better learn to release the joy
of the Lord yourself!

Kenneth Copeland Ministries