Joyous Thoughts On Joy
“…neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” Nehemiah 8:10
DON’T READ THIS IF YOU ENJOY FEELING SORRY FOR YOURSELF!! It might spoil your fun! If you would rather be pitiable than strong, stay away from the joy of the Lord!
God doesn’t go around feeling sorry for Himself and He commands us not to, “neither be ye sorry.” Rather, “Rejoice evermore” (1 Thessalonians 5:16) and “Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice” (Philippians 4:4). Though you may not be happy with yourself or your circumstances, you can be happy in God. It is God’s joy that is our strength and not our own. We may strain to find things over which to be happy in or of ourselves, but there is plenty to be happy about in the Lord.
I read about a grandfather who fell asleep on the couch and his grandson took some Limburger cheese and rubbed it onto his mustache. The grandfather stood up and began sniffing. He said, “This living room stinks!” He went into the kitchen and said, “This kitchen stinks!” He went into the backyard and said, “Our backyard stinks!” He went into the front yard and yelled, “The whole world stinks!” Unless one has the joy of the Lord, the preaching is sad; the church is sad; other Christians are sad; nothing is what it ought to be in the estimation of those who don’t have the joy of the Lord!
The joy of the Lord is the fruit of the Holy Spirit within, rather than the happiness from circumstances without. God has joy Himself. Up in heaven right now there is joy. God’s will is for His joy to be shed abroad in our hearts by His Holy Spirit. The more Christ-like we strive to be, the more of the Lord’s joy we will have in our hearts. Carnal living quenches the work of the Holy Spirit within and there goes the joy and the strength that joy affords.
A man went to a mechanic complaining that some of his lights were no longer working on his car. When he went to pick it up, the mechanic explained that it had taken him several hours to locate the problem and that that the bill would be $100. The customer asked what the problem was that caused such an expensive bill. The mechanic held up a penny. He said, “You put pennies in your ash tray. When you closed your ash tray, a penny went down into your cigarette lighter socket and shorted it out, blowing the electrical circuit.” So, one penny had cost him $100! Christian, one sin has the potential to short circuit your whole life. Like David, it can rob you of the joy of the Lord. It can leave you broken inside, with a heavy burden of guilt and sorrow. Unconfessed sin can just keep bearing down on you until you are so beat down that you can no longer function as a Christian.
God, with His joy, stands at our heart’s door and knocks. But it is up to us, whether or not He and His joy enters.
SHARING
The Valley
I have been through the valley of weeping,
The valley of sorrow and pain;
But the “God of all comfort” was with me,
At hand to uphold and sustain.
As the earth needs the clouds and the sunshine,
Our souls need both sorrow and joy;
So He places us oft in the furnace,
The dross from the gold to destroy.
When He leads through some valley of trouble,
His powerful hand we can trace;
For the trials and sorrows He sends us
Are part of His lessons of grace.
Oft we shrink from the purging and pruning,
Forgetting the Husbandman knows
The deeper the cutting and paring,
The richer the cluster that grows.
Well He knows that affliction is needed;
He has a wise purpose in view,
And in the dark valley He whispers,
“Hereafter thou’lt know what to do.”
As we travel through life’s shadowed valley,
Fresh springs of His love ever rise;
And we learn that our sorrows and losses
Are blessings just sent in disguise.
So we’ll follow wherever He leadeth,
Though pathways be dreary or bright;
For we’ve proof that our God can give comfort,
Our God can give songs in the night.
–Author Unknown
SHARINGBeing Careful In Where We Place Our Hope
“Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.” Jeremiah 17:7-8
The most devastating thing a person can experience, is to lose hope. Without hope, a person’s reason to go on living is diminished. When one loses hope, no matter what else they have, it will not fill the void of hopelessness.
Thus, it is imperative that one has a well placed hope, hoping in that which will not let them down or vanish away.
It is a grave mistake to assume that self confidence is the same as real hope. Even foresight, based on evidential supporting circumstances, may prove to be insufficient grounds for hope: “here today, gone tomorrow.”
If we settle for that which we deem to be hopeful by our self determination, we may just be setting ourselves up unto becoming ashamed of our hope.
What determines how good our hope actually is, is how good is that in which we are hoping. To have good hope in that which is no good, is the epitome of hopelessness.
The Bible gives examples of those who have started out with their hope all being in God. They sought no other refuge, and their hope in God proved to be a blessing. But as time progressed and their blessings accumulated, they shifted from hoping in God, unto having their hope in what they had been blessed with.
The difference? Placing one’s hope in God assures victory over failure. But blessings fade away, or can be taken from us, crushing the hope that has been based on them.
We must never allow the good God has given us to become bad for us. Unless our conviction of sin and faith in God affords us to “afflict ourselves” through self denial, humility, soul searching, and full surrender, the good things we have will wean us away from dependence upon God for our hope, unto the false hope of self dependence.
SHARINGEnduring Faith
In the days of David, when the bottom had dropped out of everything, and David’s men even spake of stoning him, he encouraged himself in the Lord. (1 Samuel 30:6) When Job had lost everything, and was being attacked by his friends, he declared that even though God would slay him, he would still trust in Him (Job 13:15) When Paul rebuked the feared Alexander the coppersmith and all men forsook Paul, his testimony was that the Lord stood with him and strengthened him.
It’s nice to be in the company of those who support you. But in these last days, when everything is being turned upside down, and evil men are waxing worse and worse, the Devil is seeking to tear down anything and everyone that is right and good.
In this day of covenant breakers, lack of natural affection, and disobedience to parents, there will be more working against children honoring and obeying their parents in the Lord than there will be encouraging them to do so. Church member, there will be more working to turn you away from following a ministry that is sound in the Word, than there will be promoting you to stay with it. Unless people are really given over to watching and praying and proving what is acceptable unto the Lord, the offenses of these times will swallow them up. The voices against the way of God’s Word will far outnumber the “still small voice” calling people to God’s will and way.
Many things will lend themselves to discouraging true faith in this time when truth is being challenged rather than respected. Family ties, circumstantial involvements, peer pressure, popular opinion, will all seek to turn one aside. When sound doctrine is hard to endure, any small thing makes it seem unbearable, let alone some big trial or tribulation.
Will our allegiance to the truth stand the tests and trials that we will undergo? The need is to take root in sound doctrine and the understanding of the righteousness of God’s laws. Without a personal appreciation of God’s ways above all else, then the tests of our times will persuade one to abandon God’s way to just do what is convenient for self.
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