In part 1, I talked about the pressing process that happens to olives to produce the purest oil needed for lighting the best fires. The lamps that will burn the brightest, strongest, and longest.
That’s the kind of lamp I want to be. I want to have a flame in my heart lit for the Lord that is too bright to burnout and too strong to fade. So, I decided to press into this and see how I can get that kind of flame.
I looked at the purity of the oil, and found that the pure oil is something so special.
You shall command the people of Israel that they bring to you pure beaten olive oil for the light, that a lamp may regularly be set up to burn. In the tent of meeting, outside the veil that is before the testimony. Aaron and his sons shall tend it from evening to morning before the Lord. It shall be a statue forever to be observed throughout their generations by the people of Israel.
-Exodus 27:20-21
It’s talking about the external actions that the Israelites must do. This is a literal, external lamp. And as you can see, it’s the responsibility of the people to light their own lamps.
Jesus talks about a lamp too.
The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
-Matthew 6:22-23
This here is an internal lamp. The lamp that is our heart. And again, it’s our responsibility to light the lamp in our hearts with the right light. We must keep the fire in us alive and burning.
Even when the circumstances of life make us feel like everything is falling apart. The “eye” is how we see life. If we see through a lens that God has given us, we see light!
We keep our heart healthy by being filled with His right light and overflowing it. HE IS JOY, no matter what. We can be filled with joy that is unspeakable and overflowing.
So, back to the olive pressing process. When the olives are being pressed and put in a basket, the oil drips from the basket, leaving pulp in the basket. The pulp is discarded. It’s not useful.
You know what that pulp is? Negative things. Darkness,. You know what the pure oil is? Joy.
It’s true! So all the yucky crap (the pulp) is sometimes very overwhelming. And frankly, easy to get to. All you do is press olives a bit. All you do is take a look at a situation from the perspective of our flesh.
But removing the pulp from the basket requires a healthy heart. If the heart is healthy, full of joy and Jesus, then the oil flows.
Of course being beaten and pressed is not easy- it’s the hard, painful, uncomfortable, terrible, and heartbreaking things we experience in life. But in hardships, drips joy. Joy overflowing, constantly streaming. It’s still is produced after all the pressing.
It took me a while to truly understand what it meant when people said that “I have joy.” I had heard it a lot in life and was convinced that it was because I am an ENFP and tend to be hyper most of the time. I thought joy must be a synonym for energetic or bubbly. I thought people were simply recognizing the huge smile that takes up half my face or my over-the-top energy.
I never really thought that I had a gift: the fruit of spirit, joy.
It wasn’t until Ryan (a squad leader for O squad, who spent the last month in Guatemala) prayed over me and received the word joy from the Lord. Later, Noe mentioned that I was joyful and Ryan got so excited about the fact that he had just prophesied that over me earlier that day.
Okay… I never would have gotten so excited (like Ryan did) about the coincidence of someone else saying that I had joy. Maybe it really is something unique. I started really wondering about this whole joy thing.
A few days later, Danielle (another Squad leader for O Squad) was at our home. She came into my room when I was sitting on my bed journaling. She said “I just want to let you know that your joy is contagious.”
“What?!” I thought. No way. I’m sitting here, being totally boring, journaling and doing nothing fun at all. And she sees joy. There has got to be something here.
What does it mean to have joy? I started praying a bunch and God has been teaching me tons. I think this blog would never end if I wrote it all out.
But the coolest thing- I remembered something God spoke to me back in Malaysia in November 2013.
Flames stay lit.
And if His joy is the fire in my heart, filling me with light, I want to choose it! I want to choose joy every day no matter what. It’s in me! HE is in me. So I have to make the choice to choose Him and to choose joy. To keep the fire lit inside of me.
In the Old Testament, God met with His people in a tent. Another name for the tabernacle is “the place of promised presence.” But after Jesus tore the veil and became our High Priest, we can experience God outside of a physical tent. His Holy Spirit is IN us!!! And if his spirit is in us, then we are a place of promised presence!!!!!!!
Oh my gosh, AMEN!!
I am a place of promised presence! How can I not be joyful?
I’m understanding more and more about choosing the joy of the Lord and keeping the flame in my heart lit.
And singing this song:
Set a fire down in my soul that I can’t contain, that I can’t control. I want more of you God.
