What Does It Mean To "Count It All Joy"?

Evelyn Monteiro • April 22, 2025

This is the piece of scripture that sounds crazy and impossible to do! Then again, God would not instruct us, what we would not be able to do! James 1:2-3 "Consider it nothing but joy, whenever you fall into various trials. Be assured that the testing of your faith (through experience) produces endurance (leading to spiritual maturity, and inner peace)."


The word "joy" in this verse has a profound meaning: "joy in its highest form" and "every kind of joy". God expects us to have joy in its highest form when we face challenges! How is that possible?! This verse links with Phil 4:6-7 "do not be anxious about ANYTHING, but in every situation, by prayer with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts". Do you see the similarities? We should not allow fear to overwhelm us when we face challenges. Fear steals our joy! We must find a reason to celebrate God, thank God, reflect on His goodness, even in challenging times!


When we do that, the Bible says, we will experience peace that no logic can explain!

You and I must start looking at our difficulties in a different light. We must stop seeing our challenges as if they are curses. Even if what you're going through is because of your own wrongdoing, or because of the enemy's attacks, your difficult times are still opportunities to get closer to God! They are still opportunities to pray more and grow in spiritual maturity!


Verse 2 of James 1 says "when you FALL into various trials...". We fall into difficulties sometimes, because Jesus said, we WILL face hardships in this life. We cannot avoid it. It's not always because you did something wrong, sometimes it's because of the enemy. Sometimes, it's because it's God's doing! Yes, He will allow us to go through difficulty because we have to go through times of testing. Testing what?


Verse 3: "testing of your faith (through experience) produces endurance (spiritual maturity, and inner peace)".

If we only have good times, easy times, our faith will become weak and emotional. When things go well - Jesus is Lord! But when things go wrong - Jesus is forgotten! Our experiences in life, God WILL use to our benefit and for His glory! We have to trust God that every trial, every test and every difficulty will serve its purpose! God will turn it around! Therefore, count it all joy because it's a win-win situation! Your faith is going to grow stronger, you are going to become wiser and you'll be closer to God than ever before!


We become spiritually mature and experience Godly peace when we learn to embrace our difficulties and use them as opportunities to get closer to God!

Evelyn Monteiro

Strategy of Satan: Intimidation

By Evelyn Monteiro • April 7, 2025
When someone is intimidating you, it means, they are trying to scare you, terrorize you, make you subdued, discourage you, trying to dominate you and push you around. They are trying to twist your arm and pressurize you. Now, read this: 1 Pet 5:8 "be sober-minded. Your adversary the devil prowls around LIKE a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour." He's not a lion, he's just intimidating. And yet, the Bible also says: Prov 28:1 "The wicked flee when no one pursues them, but the righteous ARE AS BOLD as a lion." The devil is like a predator: it waits when you are at your most vulnerable, most tired, most scared, to strike! This is the only reason the Bible says the devil is like a lion. But YOU are a lion! You should be bold and confident and brave, even when you face danger and intimidation! It's not sin be scared, but it becomes sin when you allow fear to control your emotions and dictate the decisions you make. Remember, Jesus was scared too! He was very scared in the Garden of Gethsemane, BUT He continued to obey His Father.

What does it mean to "cover" in prayer?

By Evelyn Monteiro • March 24, 2025
Have you ever heard of the phrase "cover" it in prayer? It's a biblical principle. The Biblical definition of "covering" means to "conceal" or "wrap" or "protect" and even "disguise". Wow! This means, that when you pray properly over something or someone, when you really cover it in prayer, you are actually wrapping it, protecting it, concealing it...from who? From the enemy! Because your enemy is an opportunist according to 1 Peter 5:8! The enemy doesn't want you to receive your healing, breakthrough, help, whatever it is you're praying for. This is why, we must COVER it properly so that the enemy can't get an opportunity to frustrate, delay or stop our breakthrough! We cover our various food items in the fridge. Have you ever wondered why we do it? The scientific reason behind it is so that one item doesn't contaminate the other items.

Are You Hard On Yourself?

By Evelyn Monteiro • March 11, 2025
If you are hard on yourself, you struggle with condemnation. What is condemnation: - you actually disapprove yourself - you see yourself as a failure - you are critical & judgmental, especially when you've made a mistake - self-hatred - carry guilt of the wrongs & disappointments you've experienced - have many regrets and think about them often - blame yourself whenever something does not go "according to plan" If Romans 8:1 says that there should be no condemnation for those of us who believe in Jesus, then why are we hard on ourselves? In fact, this verse in the Amplified says "no guilty verdict, no punishment for those who are in Christ Jesus". And yet, we are hard on ourselves.

The Trap Of Familiarity

By Evelyn Monteiro • March 3, 2025
Let me first explain what familiarity is: To be "familiar" with someone, means you are acquainted with, close to, buddies with, casual with, attached to, comfortable with. It means that they are your friend. This message is not saying you shouldn't have friends, but it is teaching you something to be weary of: satan uses those closest to us to attack us, too! We are familiar with those closest to us, it is why it hurts so much when the people who should have your back, turn their backs on you. Job had those closest to him, turn on him - his friends, even his wife! The comments they made, the "advice" they were giving him, was going to cost him his salvation in his most difficult time. He had a choice to make. He did not allow the familiarity to his friends and wife, to affect his walk of obedience to God. And that is what I am teaching you in this message. 

Spiritual Blindness

By Evelyn Monteiro • February 24, 2025
2 Corinthians 4:4 states that Satan, the god of this world blinds the minds of the unbelieving to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This verse proves that satan wants us to be spiritually blind. What does spiritual blindness look like? * being rebellious * lacking in discernment * hardness of heart * religiousness * pride When we don't deal with the above mentioned, we become spiritually blind. We struggle to see what is really going on in our hearts and lives. When we are spiritually blind, we don't have understanding and revelation. We may have knowledge, but there is no wisdom.

Is My Rebellion Hurting My Spouse?

By Evelyn Monteiro • February 17, 2025
None of us are excluded from this. Because none of us don't have rebellion. We have a sinful nature and that sinful nature, no matter how hard we try, sometimes still gets the better of us and those closest to us get the brunt of it - like our spouses. What is rebellion? Rebellion is everything we do that is opposite to the fruit of the Holy Spirit: hardness of heart, pride, stubbornness, anger, frustration, bitterness, anxiety, controlling behavior, selfishness and the like. All those behaviors that do not resemble Jesus' character, is our rebellious, sinful nature. Our actions, words and behaviors, affect our spouse. When we stress, when fear is in control, we say and do things in haste - Prov 19:2 warns us that when we act in haste, we will make mistakes. How many of your decisions made in haste did not affect your spouse negatively? Of course it did! What affects you, affects your spouse! What about going to be in anger? Eph 4:26-27 teaches us not to go to bed angry and hold on to anger and offense because we give the enemy an access point to our lives when we do that! How many times did you not forgive and went to bed angry?

Is Fear Affecting My Brain?

By Evelyn Monteiro • February 10, 2025
How much is fear affecting your actions and behavior right now? Fear is a filter. It affects how your brain perceives, how it receives messages, handles situations and circumstances. According to 1 John 4:18, fear is a mindset, we expect punishment and we can't understand God's love for us when we are consumed with fear. According to Rom12:2 our minds should be renewed so that we can discern God's will. But when we are consumed in our thoughts by fear, that's not possible. Phil 4:6-7 shows how fear and the mind affect one another: "do not be anxious or worried about anything, but in everything by prayer, continue to make your requests know to God. And the peace of God, will guard over your heart and MINDS." We should not be having fear control our minds. Fear should not be the deciding factor in making decisions. Fear should not be the driving force behind your functioning, strategizing, planning, discerning and executing instructions.

The Alabaster Jar

By Evelyn Monteiro • February 3, 2025
An alabaster jar was made of the alabaster stone to keep ointments, oils and perfumes in. It kept the oils and perfumes pure and unspoiled. In Matt 26:6-13 a woman anointed Jesus with perfume that was kept in such a jar. She had to break it. It was filled with very expensive perfume, equivalent to a year's wages. What happened? She got rebuked for doing it! In the most holy and vulnerable moment, she was being rebuked, not by unbelievers, but by the disciples themselves! But she did something that they did not understand. It took TOTAL commitment for her to have broken that jar with all that perfume inside, not knowing how Jesus would respond. But Jesus saw her heart. She gave her all, no matter what others would say. It pleased Jesus.

The Root Of Your Problem

By Evelyn Monteiro • January 27, 2025
Things don't just happen. We must not just accept things in life. We have to ask questions, we have to investigate. Many believers today blame God for their problems because they don't understand what is really going on. But with understanding there is clarity and wisdom. The Bible makes it clear to us that most of our troubles are actually spiritually rooted! That means that most of your current problems are actually because of sin, because of the evil that is stealing, killing and destroying. But we find ourselves trying to solve spiritual problems in the flesh and we wonder why they problem doesn't go away?! We wonder why our prayers have no effect. That's because we don't pray the ROOT of the problem.

How To Fight Back

By Evelyn Monteiro • January 20, 2025
The biggest thing satan bargains on, is that we are passive spiritually. As long as we are spiritually passive, we just take whatever comes, believing it's God, when it was not and we were meant to fight it, resist it, stand firm against it. This is why spiritual passivity is so dangerous - the enemy can do with us whatever he wants to! We must learn and practice the weapons Jesus gave us so that we are worthy opponents and cause the devil's schemes to fail against us! The Bible tells us that satan and his demons are always scheming against us! Eph 6:11 and 2 Cor 2:11 "don't be ignorant of his schemes". Your enemy is always looking for opportunity to make us fail - 1 Peter 5:8. A scheme can be anything from depression, bloodline curses that have destroyed your family, sickness, constant setback, cycle of bad relationships, constant rejection. Is this what God says about you? Is this what God wants for you? Of course not! But we have our part to play!
More Posts