As you fight the Lord’s battles, you must do so in the world He has created. You are not permitted to wage war in a world of your own making. You will have no real success in a faux world. I speak not only of the creation but of the new creation. The world you live in not only consists of the heavens and the earth, but of new heavens and a new earth—“For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice forever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy” (Isaiah 65:17–18).

The keynote of the new heavens and new earth is joy, homes and bottles of wine included: “They shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them” (Isaiah 65:21). The flint-faced man is not a frustrated man. He is not a man who has set his jaw because he labors in vain (Isaiah 65:23). Neither is he a man climbing his way to the starting block of the new creation. Christ is the one who made that trek. He planted the new heavens and new earth two thousand years ago in the dark of winter. You are riding the buds of spring, the blossoms of the new heavens and new earth.