The Bullet of Joy: Gratitude

Maintaining a sense of joy and well-being is dependent on one attitude … gratefulness! You can never be joyous unless you have a sense of gratitude! A thankful heart for all the good, not a selfish mind set on your disappointments, is the key to joy!

Most of us expect too much that isn’t really essential to true living. When we don’t receive what we think we deserve we lose joy. The truth is that we deserve nothing from God! The way most of us treat God is ample proof that He is under no obligation to provide all or any of our wants! Most of what we want is for ourselves and not others anyway! This is not the example of Jesus!

True joy comes when we are grateful for possessing what we know we don’t deserve or could have lost! For instance, falling in love with the right person always has both partners feeling unworthy of the other’s love. Gratitude for someone’s love brings fantastic joy! Again, joy is greatest for the athlete when he is grateful for winning, knowing that he came close to losing. And, again, receiving the news that you’ve won a new car in a contest is a perfect example that joy is born from gratitude.

William Secker put it well when he said, “He enjoys much who is thankful for little things: a grateful mind is both a great and happy mind.”

Show me a joyless person and you can be sure he or she is not grateful for the real and lasting gifts of life! A griping, grumbling Christian declares to all that there is no gratitude in his heart for Jesus Christ!

The Bullet of Joy: It’s What We Want

What is the source of true joy? Have you ever seriously asked yourself that question? Certainly one of man’s primary pursuits is joy and happiness! How are you doing?

In a nationwide survey among High School students, the question was asked, “What are the three things you want most out of life?” The answers were far from unanimous but the three desires most prominent in order were (1) love, (2) joy and (3) peace. I believe it’s more than coincidence that the Apostle Paul lists the first three fruits of obeying the Holy Spirit (in Galatians 5:22) as love, joy and peace!!

Every week I hear comments from people admitting the emptiness, shallowness and joylessness of life. The prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 55:2) spoke of this problem in the 8th Century B.C. when he asked, “Why do you spend your money for what won’t really feed you? And why squander your wages on what doesn’t satisfy?” In the dry seasons of my own life … and who hasn’t had them … I’ve asked myself why I feel so down! Nothing seems to really excite me! Everything is so routine.

It seems I always tend to think of what’s wrong rather than what’s right! Folks can have ninety-nine good things happen and one bad and what do they concentrate on? Almost always the one bad!!

The Bullet of Joy: Look to the Source

"These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full." John 15:11

The source of real joy is found in these words of the Lord Jesus. Real joy cannot be found outside one’s life but foundationally only within one’s own being. If there is no real joy from God “inside” your life, it is futile to seek for it on the “outside”; no matter the quantity of things you buy, friends you garner or how many sporting events you attend!

The gospel of Jesus tells us that His plan is to put joy into us if we will allow Him the right and receive it as His gift.

Nehemiah (read his book in Chapter 8, verse 10 and remember he lived in the 5th century BC) … know the secret! He knew that “the joy of the Lord is our strength.”

Only God’s joy within can overcome all the agonies and injustice life hurls against us! It’s a pity so few are humble enough to receive it! The conquerors of life have God’s joy in their hearts! It is the greatest power on earth! His joy!!

The Bullet of Joy: Fulfilling a Purpose

Christians in name only will probably miss my point today. I have a truth to share that only those who have tasted the Spirit of Christ will be able to comprehend.

True Believers should look for their joy in Jesus Christ alone. Only in being consumed with God’s reasons for everything … family, life, fun, purpose, work, etc. … can a human being know “life” as God created it to be.

The question is then asked, “Why is it that so many Christians seem cranky or sad, and seem to live life that is flatter than a duck’s instep?

The answer is easy! God’s bottom line purpose for our lives is to make us like Himself … to conform us to His Character … to make us like Jesus!

Our Master led the most fantastic life ever lived because His home and purpose were in the Father rather than situations that surrounded Him or in the current fads of so-called worldly wisdom.

Our blindness to the false promises of fleshy fulfillment and unfaithfulness to the high standards and realities of God give us a problem. Hence, the Lord must continually allow pressures to build in our lives so that we will be forced to reject the false and embrace the truth!

Every “prison situation” we feel trapped in is in reality only God’s classroom to focus our attention on our current needed divine homework.

To sum it up, God puts people into “joyless situations” for a season to test the purity of their motives and affections. Only in a joyless trial can we give powerful evidence that the source of our joy is in God and not in situations or circumstance.

Energy Crisis, More Than the Price of Gasoline

Here is an intriguing headline from an article on the current energy crisis from money.cnn.com.
How to beat the high cost of gasoline. Forever.

(By Adam Lashinsky, FORTUNE senior writer, January 24, 2006)

This story is about one kind of energy crisis but there is a more important one.

A real “energy crisis” is within us! A statement by Paul centuries ago is still as true today as it was then. “The good things I want to do never seem to materialize. In fact, I find myself actually doing the things I hate” (Romans 7:19). This is the story of my life. If you’re honest, I’ll bet it’s your story too. This isn’t to say we never do anything good. There are thousands of good people doing good things. But man can’t be happy just doing good things. Why? Because man was made to do the best thing. He/she can never be happy or fulfilled without doing his/her best. Remember, the good is usually the worst enemy of the best.

I am constantly aware that even though I’d doing many good things, I’m failing to do some things that would be better. Better to visit my neighbor, than watch TV another evening. But I don’t. Better to work a little less and spend more time with my family. But I don’t. Better to get my body in shape by exercise and eating less. But I don’t. The list could go on for pages.

Where do I get the power to begin breaking the habits I hate and yet feel guilty about justifying? This is the “energy crisis” to which each of us should give priority! What makes Jesus Christ so fantastically appealing to me, and to thousands of other, is that He demonstrated a life lives always at its best. The even greater news is that He promises us “our share” of God’s energy for our own “life at its best!” “For to all who receive (accept, rely on, believer) Him, He gives power to become the sons of God” (John 1:12).

In short, the “spiritual energy crisis” is far more critical than any “physical energy crisis.” Physical energy won’t help a person who is spiritually miserable, bored with the good and hungry for the best. The reason serious Christians are so excited is that God has begun to rewire them for maximum living! Power to live life at its best! Energy for breaking hated habits! If you’re missing it, perhaps your connection is loose. Or worse still, better check to see if you’re even plugged in! I’m for solving “both” energy crises. How about you?

The Bullet of Praise: Sing, No Matter What Your Voice

The older I get and the deeper I understand the wisdom of Scripture, the more open I am to truth, regardless of its source. All truth ultimately is from God. God’s truth is not limited to the labels of man. The more a man loves God and shows it, the less his label, heritage and bias seem to matter.

A remark from the late Pope John Paul I struck a cord of joyous response in my own heart. Listen to his words: “Some bishops resemble eagles who glide majestically at high levels. Other are nightingales who sing the praises of the Lord in a marvelous way. Other are poor wrens on the lowest bough of the ecclesiastical tree who only chip, seeking to offer some small though regarding the great themes. I belong to the final category.”

Right on!!! I know the feeling! Alone with God during the week I find my mind and heart literally exploding from the rewards of prayer and Bible study. I know that when my time comes to preach, I will strike with the force of an H-Bomb! But, alas! It seems that every time I preach all I can produce equals the force of a B-B gun!

Knowing the Lord Jesus Christ personally for what He really is … loving, forgiving, patient, joyful, truthful, tender, seeking … Shepherd, Savior, Master, King, Lover, Father … magnificent, wondrous, powerful, thrilling … all make me want to fill the earth with the beautiful praise song of a combined band and symphony orchestra numbering at least a thousand pieces and joined with a chorus of two thousand mixed voices!

Those of us who have experienced the authentic Christ yearn desperately for all the world to know His beauty and greatness and to love Him accordingly. But between wanting this and doing it is a great gap.

My greatest intentions to sound like a symphony for Christ usually deteriorates to the gutturals of a frog crock! Yet, far better to croak and get some of the message out than to remain silent. There are hundreds of folks around who are on the “croak wave-length” and will get the picture.

Be it the chirp of a wren or the croak of a frog, we little followers of Jesus must do something.

Easter: Accepting Reality, Part 2

The Apostle Paul said, in II Corinthians 4, the Christians are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake. In other words, we must die to our self desires before we can live for God’s desires. What fools we are in our insane dreams to think our desires for our lives are grater than God’s desires for our lives! Creator ambition for us is overwhelmingly greater than our limited ambition!

The following little anonymous poem sums it up quite adequately:

I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men.
I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God.

I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life.
I was given life, that I might enjoy all things.

I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I hoped for.
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am among all, most richly blessed!

Resurrection is something like this! I hope you’re in on it!

Easter: Accepting Reality, Part 1

The reason that the resurrection of Christ has less meaning for Christians than it should and is really a mystery to most non-Christians, is the refusal to mix it with suffering. Pain and resurrection go together. The latter will never come without the former.

The greatness of resurrection victory is woefully diminished by the smallness of our vision of reality.

One practical expression of this is that so many Christians seem to think all they have to do is trust and pray, and God will pull of the hard stuff without their effort. This is immaturity and shallowness at its worst! Christ didn’t pray His way through the cross, He actually went there! His suffering wasn’t a “quickie” and then on with the fun. He hung there for six hours and then was sealed in a tomb! Agony and silence preceded His triumph.

In man’s blindness and lust for the easy, we refuse to mix agony and ecstasy. We deny the necessity of pain and seek only joy. We hunger for the happy times and are mystified at the place of grief. We disdain our need for suffering and thirst selfishly for more pleasure! Eric Heiden, the winner of seven gold medals at the 1980 Winter Olympics in speed skating, attributed his success to the pain he endured in training, “If a person’s going to win,” he said, “he has to be prepared to suffer for it.”