Jake Enriquez: 00:18 Welcome back to Press and Reach. My name is Jake Enriquez your host. Good morning to you. This beautiful Saturday morning. I hope all is well for you today. Man

Jake Enriquez: 00:22 it’s I can’t tell you how much I love Saturdays it’s the end of the week the weekend so to speak and you know we get to hang out with the family and do the things that you get to go do. If you have to work today. May I just say Praise God. All right. On. You can do it. I know you can do it if you have to go to work and you have to do something that maybe you don’t really want to do. I just want you to stand though that real quick and say Praise God Thank You Lord and allow me to get up and go to do this job today. All right. Our prayers are with you by the way. But you know as I’m sitting here reflecting on this past week and going over some of the things that I’ve seen this is just the thought that comes to my mind is how the joy of the Lord is our strength.

Jake Enriquez: 01:01 And if the joy of the Lord is our strength why do we have so many people out here running around. They know this too. If you are a Christian OK why do we have so many people out here who are believers by the way looking all frowned up man that is no way to be you know. And I know. And man I got to tell you something if you don’t know this. Hey everybody around you knows it. So it’s time to stop walking around looking like you’ve got rocks in your mouth. And actually praise God and give him thanks and praise for this day for the day that we’re in. MAN Look up get excited and be encouraged about where the Lord has us in this day.

Jake Enriquez: 01:40 You know as I’m thinking about this past week I’ve got a lot of things that I can be grateful for and thankful for. You know I think about these things that are going on in our communities out here. I see so many good things so you know me and some friends of mine we were out at a an event yesterday and we had the chance and the opportunity to network with some other organizations who are doing some great things out here man. It brings a great joy to me and to my heart just to see it happening so you know number one I think about opportunity and the opportunities that we all have out here to go do these things and do some great things for the Lord right and with the Lord.

Jake Enriquez: 02:18 I should say as he moves us through it and moves us through it all. But when I think about the joy of the Lord is our strength. You know I think sometimes we get a little bit twisted We need to keep it really really simple OK. We are the joy of the Lord. I hope I hope that we understand that in other words hope we understand that you remember the scripture for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that who ever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Jake Enriquez: 02:46 Now think about that a minute.

Jake Enriquez: 02:48 God so loved the world right now the words that’s God’s real joy is his people his precious people his precious creation. And there’s so many times that you’ll see that actually written in Scripture. And I think sometimes often we just have to be reminded of it you know over in Isaiah you know it says that the bridegroom rejoices over the bride. So shall your god rejoice over you that’s Isaiah 62:5. But my favorite I’ve got to tell you my favorite has always been for the joy set before him. He endured the cross. You know that Joy he’s speaking up by the way as us. So that’s the joy of the Lord are his people his precious people so and if in fact you and I are the joy of the Lord man you got to understand that is our strength that God would love us so much and care for us so much that we would be able to go walk in this world and do these things that we get the opportunity again to go do.

Jake Enriquez: 03:49 So opportunity is the first thing that I think about was the opportunities that we may be taking advantage of what’s what are some of the opportunities that may have been placed in front of us at this time whether it be on the job you know wherever you’re working at your place of employment or maybe your business or a ministry that God has put before you. You have so many opportunities to take advantage of and surely God is in control and leading that thing with us in mind. So I think about how that is our strength is how much God cares about us and how much he rejoices in us.

Jake Enriquez: 04:25 So if you can imagine that God surely loves us so much you know Scripture says cast your cares upon the Lord because He cares about us right that he loves us so much don’t you think he’s going to see us through whatever that is. Watch this. Even if we make a mistake even if we don’t get it all the way right. He’s surely still going to guide us as we go. So be joyful in that you know and and give God thanks for all of those things as we move forward.

Jake Enriquez: 04:54 Which just leads me to my next point which is just being thankful. Can you think of all the things that you could be thankful for today because that and that alone should absolutely get us refocused on being joyful. If joy of the Lord is our strength and it is by the way we can surely be thankful for so many different things today and if we were just to take a brief moment to do that. I promise you it would help us and change in our attitude and change in the way that we move about out here the change it would change the way that we interact with one another. It changes everything about us when we’re thankful you know because if we operate with a thankful heart a thankful spirit just always given thanks everything changes about each and every one of us. And the reason I point that out is I’ve heard a lot of grumbling this past week. I’ll just tell you the truth. Should we be out here grumbly brother or sister. Absolutely not. There’s

Jake Enriquez: 05:59 no real reason for us to grumble. I’m telling you right now we’ve got all that we need God’s already given us all that we ever needed. When it pertains to life and godliness so say his words so what we should be doing is be thankful as we move throughout this day. How many of you have a job. How many of you have a business that you own. How many of you are involved in a ministry or maybe you’re you just started a minister you’ve been doing a ministry for quite some time.

Jake Enriquez: 06:28 How many of you. I’m just asking these questions because these are the things that I think about how many of you have a family. Oh my goodness I have seven kiddos man. I’m thankful. I’m serious I’m thankful I thank God for them little youngsters. I have a wonderful beautiful wife. I thank God for her always. She prays for me prays with me and everything else. Man I’m telling you right now. Thank God for her always so being thankful of course is one of the key elements in understanding the joy of the Lord because God loves us so much. It’s the very least we can do is open up our mouth and say Thank You Lord. After all it is the one hundredth Psalm that says enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise.

Jake Enriquez: 07:18 Speaking of thanks we want to say thanks to you for coming out and hanging out with us here on the press and reach podcast if you get an opportunity please go by and visit us at www.pressandreach.com. Leave us a comment or if you have any questions or concerns We’d love to hear from you. We also have the newsletter over there that goes out on a Saturday morning as well as the SUBSCRIBE buttons that are there in the show notes of each and every episode. So please come visit us on www.pressandreach.com what we do is simply focus on faith family and community we are a community of faith and we always aim to put God in front of everything and on top of everything so we focus on the Lord first always in and we love to share stories of faith with one another and we love to build that community where we are going and we always look for others to come join us.

Jake Enriquez: 08:07 That they would come and share a testimony or a story of faith and how God has seen them through. But speaking of the joy of the Lord this morning the last thing I want to talk about is people. I was right. And last but not least the people think about this for a moment. I’m talking about how the joy of the Lord is our strength and how we are God’s joy. God

Jake Enriquez: 08:28 has a joy for us. He has a yearning for his people he loves his precious people OK.

Jake Enriquez: 08:35 So as you think about that what we often need to think about is how we should show the same type of long suffering for one another out here. And

Jake Enriquez: 08:46 for this last point I’m just going to share a really quick story and then we’re going to be done. But I’m thinking about how God wants us to take and show the same longsuffering that he has always had for us that we turn that around and show it towards others out here in our community as we go forward. I ran into a lady this past week at the gym and I had a great conversation with her.

Jake Enriquez: 09:09 You know as we were talking about the different things that took place this past week I noticed that one another lady came out of the hall. She looked over there at her and then she looked back at me and she frowned I said Oh what was all that about sister as she said you know I’m looking and you know that lady you know she surely doesn’t like to talk to anybody.

Jake Enriquez: 09:32 She never says hello. She’s always mad.

Jake Enriquez: 09:36 She’s always she’s always that you know she was pointing this out. I said Oh OK. I asked her a question. I

Jake Enriquez: 09:41 said is the joy of the Lord your strength. And she said well yeah it is mind but it’s obviously not hers. I started laughing as well. Something that happened because here in the last few minutes your joy was zapped. That’s right it’s got snatched right from you. And that’s important for us each and every one of us to understand because as we walk throughout this day it’s so easy for these kinds of things to happen. But we have to recall there’s only one that ever came to steal kill and destroy. And you know that’s the enemy. So as I watched her joy was snatched from her I reminded her of that.

Jake Enriquez: 10:27 And she started to laugh at us. But you know you’ve got to stand on that. And I love the mere fact that she asked me the question and she said OK so what am I supposed to do.

Jake Enriquez: 10:36 What am I supposed to do when someone treats me in that manner what am I supposed to do when someone doesn’t reciprocate the same type of courtesy to me. I said you praise God in it. I’m serious when you see something like that what does that have to do with you. Why would you allow your joy to be snatched based off her response. That can’t happen. So

Jake Enriquez: 11:00 I showed it to I say excuse me hello how you do it. I gave her a wave and when she did it way back I said Praise God you know serious thing I think about this all the time.

Jake Enriquez: 11:12 We don’t move out here conditionally like that. We can’t move out here conditionally. Now the words I’ll show you a courtesy if in fact you’re going to give it back. That’s not how it works. The joy of the Lord is your strength knowing how much he cared about me knowing how much he loved me and that God wants me to reciprocate the same thing to each and every body out there and that my friend is strength.

Jake Enriquez: 11:40 So as we go forward today in this day I’m praying for you I’m praying with you. I just wanted to come out here do this really quick episode about how the joy of the Lord is truly our strength. I know that there’s so much more we could say and talk about as the joy of the Lord being our strength but I’m just touching base on this as a reflection of what I saw this past week. And as we break off into the next week to come I’m praying and hoping that you’ll continue to rely on the joy of the Lord is your strength. Move forth faithfully. No one can understand it. God

Jake Enriquez: 12:12 already sees it all right. And he sees it all he sees you through it all.

Jake Enriquez: 12:18 He remember the show notes on this episode. Simply go to press and reach dot com forward slash PR 23.

Jake Enriquez: 12:25 I’m just so thankful in this day I’m giving God all the praise all the honor and all the glory. And I’m telling you right now I’m praying for each and every one of you as you go forward. And this weekend. Have a great weekend.