Joy

I am so thankful to be a Christian! I can't imagine not having the Lord as my best friend in all the world. "There is no peace, no joy, no thrill, like walking in His will. For me to live is Christ, to die is gain!" It is such a blessing on life's journey to look around and be able to say, "this world is not my home, I'm just a'passin' through."

I do that often. As I drive along the Lord opens my eyes to the passengers, pedestrians, and homes around me, and shows me a struggling, lost, alone, and dying world. The emptiness and sheer waste of life saddens me beyond description. The harvest truly is plenteous. Each and every person that I see, no matter how unlovely, is someone that my Lord loved enough to die for. How selfish of me to enjoy the immeasurable blessings of a life with Christ, and not have compassion on those going through life without Him. Who wouldn't want to share peace that passes all understand with someone who so plainly has none? What a precious gift that would be to that person! Could you imagine?

What do I have to lose by sharing Christ with everyone I meet? So what if they get mad? So what if they are mean-spirited? I have Christ. I have everything to be joyful about. And nothing to be sad, upset, anxious, or bitter about. Basically, I am without excuse. Is God on the throne? Is He in control? Does He promise me joy unspeakable and full of glory? Does He promise victory?

And yet so many of us who call ourselves Christians, and are so privileged to live as a child of the King of the universe live lives that are just as void of peace, joy, love, and victory. Only we inflict it on ourselves. We choose it. Who in their right mind would do such a thing?

When we are walking this journey called life and we find ourselves struggling...we are lacking something; whether it be victory over sin and temptation, or peace and joy. But it's our own fault. Our King has all the answers. He knows the beginning of a matter and the end thereof. Nothing is too hard for Him, and the resources of the world are at His disposal; therefore, they are at ours.

Everything that He allows to happen in our lives is for the purpose of drawing us closer to Himself.

Everything.

We have a choice though. We can either draw closer to God and become better Christians, or we can withdraw and become bitter, but we can't do both.

It's completely unreasonable to expect to have the fruit of the Spirit if we are choosing not to submit to God. You can't become like God unless you walk with Him. You can't claim Him as your best friend if you don't spend any time with Him. Are you faithful to read your Bible and pray everyday? If you do, do you just go through the motions to pacify your conscience? Or do you hunger and thirst for some Word from God? Something uniquely and sweetly personal?

Every morning before I read my Bible I pray, "Open my eyes, Lord, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy Law." If you don't expect something wonderful from God, you probably won't receive it.

God is longing to give us great things! Great victory, great joy, great peace. We do not serve a mediocre God. Unlike us, He does everything with excellence.

He cares about the smallest things in our lives. He is very detail oriented. He knows that failure or victory in any venture begins with the attention or lack thereof given to detail. Everything we do in life, no matter how insignificant, counts for something.

Often we pay attention to detail, but in a convoluted way. We say, "One more bite won't hurt me, or one pop, or beer, or cigarette, or bad word. It's only one." Or "I can afford to spend 1, or 5 or 20 more dollars. That won't break me." You name it. We justify it. But soon that one small step snowballs and turns into a huge issue in our lives. My point is that no one can live an overcoming life for you. Not even Christ. It's not that He can't, but that He won't. But He can help you once you surrender to Him.

I was listening to the Dave Ramsey show yesterday afternoon, and there was a guy on there who made $100,000 a year and had $150,000 of credit card debt, $15,000 of debt on their cars, and a $250,000 mortgage. Understandably Dave was thoroughly disgusted with the guy and said that he and his family were going through money like it was water. Dave might as well have been speaking in Chinese for all the guy got out of the conversation. I wish you all could have heard it. But it occurred to me that many of us are in a similar situation, just to a smaller degree because our incomes are lower. It's just not so glaringly obvious.

People say they want to change; that they don't like the direction their life is going, but they do absolutely nothing about it when it comes right down to it. One of my favorite quotes is "if you always do what you've always done, you'll always be what you've always been." But now I want to add to that that you'll not only be what you've always been...you'll get worse. It's true. "Sin will take you farther than you wanted to go, keep you longer than you wanted to stay, and charge you more than you are willing to pay."

Your sin does not only affect you. There is a rippling effect to everything we do. Each of us touch other people's lives on a daily basis. We can't afford not to be right with God. You may not think anyone else knows, but I assure you, it's more obvious to those we touch than it is to us. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it?"