This Is the Day

“This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” - Psalm 118:24

This is the day. The day where you will prevail. The day where you will take back what is rightly your’s. The day that you realize there’s more than your current situation, is finally here. Depression, anxiety, stress, all the betrayal and hurt you have felt yourself or have given to others, and all your fears of tomorrow are no more. Why? Because today is the day. Christ is your cornerstone. The cornerstone position has given Him the authority and power of being your foundation. Upon Him, every good thing will be built. Upon Him, all the weight will fall. It does NOT fall on you. Because of this truth, we can KNOW and rejoice in this day.

“The stone which builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord’s doing; It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.”

Psalm 118:22-24 (NKJV)

Most of us are very familiar with the last part of the above Psalm, whether it be present in Christian greeting cards, on our morning coffee mugs or printed in our church pamphlets on Sunday mornings. Rejoicing and being glad in the current day is hard to do when we do not know exactly “why” we should be rejoicing in the first place.

So many things come at us as Christians from every angle as a man or woman. So many stresses take us captive, insurmountable situations leave us breathless and all we can do at times is curl up in the corner of our minds and just simply collapse into ourselves, not trusting the plan of God but simply trusting that the chaos of this current day is all too real to be ignored.

A simple typing of the word “cornerstone” into Google gives us the following profound

definition (provided from Oxford):

“An important quality or feature on which a particular thing depends or is based.”

In order for us to maintain peace in our existence, we must depend on Jesus and what He did, and not on ourselves and what we ourselves are capable of.

“Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God.”

2 Corinthians 3:5 (NKJV)

We cannot depend or trust that we can take on our day all on our own, because we are simply imperfect. Jesus who is our Savior and our God is the only one Who is perfect, therefore through only Him and what He did are we sufficient! He made us worthy because He was first worthy, He was first perfect in His sacrifice for us, therefore we also were made perfect.

“For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.”

Hebrews 10:14 (NJKV)

We all will crumble and fall from the pressures of our current day if we stand on and depend on our own crumbling foundations. But God. Always remember those two words. BUT GOD. He is your unshakable, crack-free, eternally strong standing and PERFECT foundation. In every aspect of our chaotic day, we can claim the authority and victory that the cross has provided us through Jesus' blood!

His victory, is our victory.

If we realize right now that our victory depends on nothing but Him, we are half way to being able to truly proclaim our gladness in this and every other day of our lives…

You now have the knowledge that Christ is the cornerstone to yourself, He keeps you supported and is the most important feature from which you can depend on for your worth and capabilities in conquering your day.

But there is one more lesson you must learn…

Have you ever been called “weak” by another person, or have told yourself this? Have you ever felt a certain feeling grip you from the inside out to the point where in the midst of walking down a certain path you decide to just turn the other way and go back to where you came because you realized you weren’t strong or good enough? This feeling I describe is one we are all too familiar with: FEAR. As Christians, if we have Jesus in our hearts and know He is our supplier, but lack the knowledge of WHAT exactly He supplies us, we will never breakthrough the prison where we hold ourselves captive. We will always let fear hold us ransom. We now know the truth of Who is our foundation, but we must remember this most important truth:

Just as David stood completely unshaken with his Lord’s strength by his side against the giant Goliath, so also you WILL stand.

Why could he stand unshaken? Because he knew his supplier and WHAT was supplied to him! It manifested from his heart outward for all to see and because of it, he did the absolute impossible of slaying a monster. He did not let what stood in front of him steal away his trust in his God’s firm capabilities.

He stood confident not in himself and his own feeble strength, but in the strength of his God.

He wanted us to know this powerful truth that he discovered. As a result, penned one of the most important Psalms that is available to us Christians:

“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”

Psalm 27:1 (NKJV)

David is one of our greatest examples of on Whom we should depend. He stood in God’s strength and depended not in his own weaknesses. He knew WHO his supplier was and WHAT He supplied him. Knowing those truths together, he let God set him free from the bondage of fear and told himself that fateful day:

“This is the day I will slay this giant.”

  What is your giant? What is going on in your life right now that is keeping you from being able to rejoice and be glad in your day every day?

As humans, we know we cannot do this life on our own. The children start crying and having tantrums, the kitchen is a catastrophe and the house itself looks like a toy tornado just blew through. Your homework assignments are piling up, your grades are not where they should be and you struggle to find purpose even getting out of bed. The boss just called you into their office, you lose your job, your family needs to be provided for and the bills are piling up in the corner. Do any of these apply to you? Maybe just existing is hard for you. Depression cripples you from the first moment you wake up. Perhaps you have been given a medical diagnosis and your life is now at a point where you never could have imagined it. In this present time, you may just feel like you could collapse in on yourself and cry until you have nothing left inside of you…You can’t do this on your own, and you are not meant to.

That fear is used as a weapon against you by the devil to make you feel as if YOU are your own foundation and YOU are your own strength.

He knows you could never live up to that and batters you with it day in and day out. You yourself know that you could never live up to that either. Your days are no longer of thriving and rejoicing, but of simply surviving. Being in “survival mode” every day is what steals our joy, contentment and confidence away.

That’s what the enemy wants…DO NOT LET HIM HAVE IT.

We cannot be our own rock, because there is only One.

“Do not fear, nor be afraid;

Have I not told you from that time, and declared it

You are My witnesses. Is there a God besides Me?

Indeed there is no other Rock; I know not one.”

Isaiah 44:8 (NKJV)

It’s time to apply these lessons from David into your own life today…

I want you to replace the following blank provided below with the giant that is standing in the way of you having a good day. Wherever you are right now, say this out loud so that you may hear, as well as the devil, so that you and him may be reminded of this truth:

“I am weak and incapable of handling ___________ all on my own. BUT GOD has provided the ONLY means by which I am strong and will make it through this. Jesus IS my strength and my capability and WITH Him I will conquer ____________ and WILL rejoice and be glad in this day!”

You can rejoice and be glad in your day right now without that depression medication or that morning cup of coffee, without that relaxing massage or that quart of ice cream waiting for you in the freezer, without that weekend away from the kids with your spouse and without that next paycheck going into your bank account. Why? Because Christ is your cornerstone, your rock, and your foundation from which you WILL stand! Do not be afraid of your incapabilities, but REST in Jesus’ abilities to provide you with exactly what you need in order to thrive in your day!

He has provided you with an overflowing cup of courage and strength to take on your day, all you have to do is accept it!

“Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.”

Matthew 7:24-25 (NKJV)

Today is the day that you are “more than” the giants that stand in between you and your joyous days, because God has provided the only way by which it is possible, the cornerstone of your life, Jesus.