JOY AND HAPPINESS

Most of what I write comes from experiences in my life. Sometimes it is conversations with people or just thoughts that I have. Then God and I spend some time together with these ideas and when I begin to understand it I bring it to you and try to teach and share with you these “revelations” that I have had. This topic is similar and yet different because I have not come to a complete understanding of this yet but I am confident that God will grant us wisdom and understanding as we continue to seek after Him and His ways. I have had a difficult time in preparing this but as I prayed and thought about all the people at the nursing home where I sometimes speak I began to realize that some of them were already living this. So I write this with thankfulness in my heart to the elderly who are living the example.

Jam 1:2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,

I always thought how could I possibly be happy when all this terrible stuff is happening? My whole world seems to be falling apart around me and I’m supposed to be happy. This whole Christian thing wasn’t going to work for me if I was supposed to be happy that terrible things happen. After a terrible car crash that left two promising 18-year-old girls that had just graduated 4 days prior dead. One of which was my daughter’s best friend and also her boyfriend’s sister. Then on top of it all I have other family situations that, well lets just say its not stuff to be happy about. How could one possibly be happy and count it all joy? But of course being happy and counting it all joy have two totally different meanings. That is why it is important to study, learn and listen. So that is what I started to do.
So I looked into what the word joy meant and what was the lesson or what was the text seeming to say and is it the same thing as happiness.
My deduction... God will give us joy but He never promised us happiness. You may say “Dan you’re splitting hairs, it means the same thing”. No. I don’t believe it does. I think there is a very distinct difference in the joy that the Bible speaks of and the word happy that we use today. When we speak of being happy we think of laughing and as my wife stated “happiness is an outward expression of an emotional feeling”. When I asked my youngest son what happiness was to him it was getting a new skateboard, going to a party, going on vacation. He associated happiness with temporal type things. The word happiness as we use it today is superficial and without depth. It comes and goes depending on surrounding circumstances and is based primarily on feelings.
The unabridged version 1.1 at dictionary .com defines happiness as:
1. The quality or state of being happy.
2. Good fortune; pleasure

Now lets take a look at the word joy. In a majority of the texts that I will be referring to today according to Strongs is translated as...
chara
khar-ah'
From G5463; cheerfulness, that is, calm delight: - gladness, X greatly, (X be exceeding) joy (-ful, -fully, -fulness, -ous).

I love the phrase “calm delight”. In the midst of any circumstance you can have a calm delight. I wrote earlier that the people at the nursing home helped me with this sermon, I look around at them and I see the smiles and the peace on their faces and it helped me to realize that this concept can be real. Even in the pain some of them are in, even in the heartache and disappointment that some of them are experiencing they are still there every Sunday trying their best to sing and smile for the Lord. In their situation the world would tell them that you have a right to be bitter and mean and curse God for what He has done to you. But most of them are able to have a calm delight or a joy that the world could never understand without the love of Christ in their own hearts. You see it in their faces when we sing the old hymns and they come to life. People who hardly move or even grunt during the week are lifting their feeble arms to praise the Lord. The nurses are hardly able to believe how much they participate and how they are revived.
Let me give you an example that the Bible gives to help understand this concept...
. Joh 16:21 When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.
Joh 16:22 So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.
The woman was in pain and was not happy at the moment but she never lost her joy in knowing that she was about to have a baby. It’s worth the pain. You wouldn’t curse God because of the pain; you would thank God for the blessing of the baby.
Of course the ultimate example for us to strive to follow would be that of Christ himself. Lets look at Hebrews chapter 2.
Heb 12:2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God,
I don’t think Jesus was ever not joyful about his purpose on this earth. He knew from the beginning why He was here and although He was not always happy, that joy was always set before Him. A calm delight if you will because He knew what was to come.
Does this mean that we shouldn’t ever be happy and have fun? Of course not.
What it does mean is that when you are going through a time of your life when things don’t seem to be so happy or are downright unhappy you can still keep your chin up and not be bitter toward friends, family or even God. JD Hatfield went over this on Wednesday evening and it applied so well I wanted to go over it with you.
1Co 7:21 Were you a slave when called? Do not be concerned about it. But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity.
1Co 7:22 For he who was called in the Lord as a slave is a freedman of the Lord. Likewise he who was free when called is a slave of Christ.
1Co 7:23 You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men.
1Co 7:24 So, brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God.
This is directly from JD’s notes on these verses. I wanted to be accurate. He wrote...Just because a slave can and should please God doesn’t mean that Paul is teaching that God doesn’t want men to be free. Just because you can glorify God in that dark place doesn’t necessarily mean God wants to leave you there, but your attitude must be that if He does leave you there you will serve Him by serving in that situation anyway. If you can be free, if you can be loosed, if you can be made whole, healed, helped or whatever then praise the Lord. If not, well, then praise the Lord too. In everything give thanks
1Th 5:18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
No matter what earthly situation you find yourself in keep yourself in the love of God.
JD also writes... Sometimes the power of God is not to deliver you from a situation but through and in that situation itself, so others, whom are not Christians or who are weak in the faith, they can see what a mature believer would do in the same situation.
Unhappiness is not necessarily a punishment for sinning. It doesn’t mean God has forgotten you, but part of God’s ultimate plan that is for His good and for His glory.
If you have the ability to be happy by all means be happy! But your amount of happiness should never affect the amount of joy you have. I could give you several references in the Bible that give us examples and lessons on having joy in difficult situations. Paul is an excellent example of this as he writes of joy while in prison. His focus was not on his circumstances but on Christ and His Glory. We need to focus on glorifying Christ then happiness is no longer a priority but a bonus.

F.R.O.G (Gratefulness)

It is time to continue on with our frog acronym. I’ve have been writing on how to usher Christ into our lives. I went over faith, which was the “F” in the frog. I wrote about the differences of right faith and wrong faith and the dangers of having faith in the wrong things. I cautioned you that blind faith could be a fatal mistake. How to determine which faith is which, (Does it line up with the Word) and what to do once you have determined that it was the right faith. (Grab a hold of it and don’t let go). I wrote of the importance of knowledge of the Word so that we are not deceived or easily swayed and in that Word is how our faith is increased.
After that I went to repentance, which was the “R” in the frog. In dealing with repentance we learned that we must start with humility. You must be able to admit that you are a sinner and that you need a savior. I explained to you that there is nothing you can do to earn the righteousness that is required to go to heaven. It required the atoning blood of Jesus Christ to cover your sins and nothing less. Your requirement is to believe and repent.
The last time I wrote it was on obedience and how obedience is the fruit of our repentance. If we are truly repentant then we would naturally become more obedient. I wrote about how we need to perceive God as “worth it”. God needs to be more important or more valuable than anything this world could ever offer. Again obedience is a moment-by-moment occurrence and you will have times of success and of failure.
So now we move on to gratefulness. Which is the last letter in our frog acronym. Gratefulness is going to be the natural progression of our faith, repentance and obedience.
I gave you a scenario of me giving my son a million dollars if he was obedient. He would want to be obedient because of the reward.
The reason we should be grateful is because we have already been given the reward. Yes, we are still in the flesh and we have aches and pains and heartbreaks and all that kind of stuff that comes with living in this world but we can, because of Christ, have a joy that passes all understanding even in the midst of what may even seem to us to be hell. With gratefulness is going to come a joy and a peace that will help keep our faith renewed, a repentant heart and a desire to be obedient to God.
Gratefulness should be a constant part of our lives because we want to be obedient to the Word. Lets read in Colossians chapter 3.
Col 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
Col 3:17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
We are commanded to be grateful in our words and in our actions. How do we act grateful? It’s all in there! Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly... We show gratefulness when we read Gods word. Teaching, admonishing one another... What I am doing right now is showing my gratefulness to my Savior. Singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness... Singing praises to God is showing gratefulness to Him for what He has done for you in your life. If we understand what being grateful is than we can understand how to do it more often.
Eph 2:11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called "the uncircumcision" by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands--
Eph 2:12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
Eph 2:13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
If we can truly understand the depravity of man than we can truly understand how far God had to go to make us righteous. Only then can we begin to show our gratefulness.
Heb 12:28 Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe,
Out of thankfulness we offer to God acceptable worship. In our worship we glorify God. When we glorify God through this process of faith, repentance, obedience and gratefulness we are ushering Christ into our lives. Are you ready to do that today? Is there a hope of heaven and of Christ inside you? Are you willing to repent and turn from the world and turn to Christ? Are you willing to be obedient step by step for the reward that lies before you? Can you be thankful to God for all that He has done? It is as simple as that 4-step process to begin a life filled with a joy that surpasses all understanding. Not that there will not be any suffering but that you can endure because of the joy and hope that lies within you which is Christ Jesus.

F.R.O.G. (obedience)

It is time to continue on with our frog acronym. I have been writing how to usher Christ into our lives. I went over faith, which was the “F” in our frog. I wrote about the differences of right faith and wrong faith and the dangers of having faith in the wrong things. I cautioned you that blind faith could be a fatal mistake. How to determine which is which, (Does it line up with the Word) and what to do once you have determined that it was the right faith. (Grab a hold of it and don’t let go). We spoke of the importance of knowledge of the Word so that we are not deceived or easily swayed and in that Word is how our faith is increased.
After that I went to repentance, which was the “R” in our frog. In dealing with repentance we learned that we must start with humility. You must be able to admit that you are a sinner and that you need a savior. I explained to you that there is nothing you can do to earn the righteousness that is required to go to heaven. It required the atoning blood of Jesus Christ to cover your sins and nothing less. Your requirement is to believe and repent.
With our re-cap complete that brings us to our next letter in our frog. “O” is for obedience. Keeping in mind that our theme to all this is ushering Christ into our lives and these four steps are in order. Start with faith to believe and in order to advance you have to deal with repentance and now we will see how obedience is next in Gods order.
If we refer back to John the baptist's ministry we see that the people that were gathered asked what else they should do other than being baptized. John gave them all the instruction to bear fruit in keeping with repentance. That is found in Luke chapter 3 verse 8. Which says: Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.
There were physical works that were required. Personality changes that had to be made. The verse cautions us to not be prideful. Changes in the way they do business and in the way they live their lives needed to be made. The fruit of their repentance would be their obedience. If you are truly repentant you will become obedient. We all try to get by with our little pet sins that we don’t want to give up. We will never give them up if we can’t ask Gods forgiveness and repent of them. Obedience will come if you continue to repent. If your faith is true, your hope of what is eternal causes you to repent which makes the obedience a lot easier. I’ve given this example before but I want to do it again to make it easy to understand. If I were to tell my son that if he would be obedient to me and my wife that he would have riches beyond measure when he turned 18, then he would want to be obedient because of the reward. And if he was ever disobedient don’t you think he would come to me begging for mercy and forgiveness? God tells us that if we are obedient to Him that we will have riches and rewards beyond measure and we will be in his very presence. If we could truly grasp that then our whole perspective on obedience would change. God is better than anything you might be trying to hold on to here. I promise you. If you find it impossible to be obedient then you should check your faith and really decide if you believe and if you do then start repenting and the obedience will come out of a love and a desire to please the lord of your life. We should want to obey no matter what because we see it as “worth it”. If you want to usher in Christ then you have to decide that He is worth being obedient for.
I don’t mean to mislead you here. One way to learn obedience is by suffering. Hebrews 5:8 tells us that even Christ learned obedience by suffering. Not that Christ ever sinned but it teaches us the importance of obedience and that our suffering can bring about obedience and it is worth it. Being obedient does not mean that you will never sin again. What it does mean is that when you do sin that you, by faith, be repentant and you will have forgiveness. You will not lose your reward or not be allowed into heaven. Obedience is to be learned, it is perpetual because you are not and will not ever be perfect as long as you are in this world.
In the book of 1 Samuel chapter 15 in verse 22 we are told that obedience is better than sacrifice and to listen is better than the fat of lambs. Obedience is important. It is necessary and God demands it. Praise God that he doesn't require the sacrifices and rituals that he required of the Isrealites. We are under the new covenant and the new law that Christ came and fulfilled.
I'll end with this. When I was studying for this I came across these two verses and they seemed appropriate for what I am speaking of today. Deuteronomy chapter 30.
Verse 19: I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live,Being obedient is a daily, minute by minute choice, which will you choose this minute? How about the next minute?
Verse 20: loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them."
The promise to the Israelites is your promise today. If you love the Lord, obey his voice and hold fast then you will dwell in the land that he has promised you. I’m going into my next sermon on gratefulness now so I will stop. The next time I write we will fold all of this together in a package that will teach us how to usher Christ into our lives.

F.R.O.G. (Repentance)

The last few posts I’ve written about how to usher Christ into our lives. We have been using the acronym F.R.O.G. Faith, Repentance, Obedience and Gratefulness as an outline of how to usher in Christ. We have already gone over faith on my last post and how to determine proper and improper faith and then holding on to and standing on the faith that lines up with the Word of God and discarding any faith that does not point directly to Jesus.
So, going back to our acronym "F" being faith, next is "R" which is repentance. That is what I will be writing about today: The importance of repentance in our journey to usher in Christ.
When I wrote on faith I explained to you that one of the first steps is humility and that you must have enough humility to know that you need faith in a higher being and your not it. Repentance is much the same in that you have to have enough humility to see that you are a sinner and that you yourself can do nothing to atone for your sins. Even the Israelites in Moses day knew they had sin and had to offer sacrifices to God in order to be clean or righteous in the sight of God. This can be difficult because your flesh will want to say, “I’m not so bad. I’ve never killed anyone, I try to be nice to everyone”.
I’d like to show to you from the book of Romans that it is not just I that is saying this but it is in the word. We are going to practice what we learned about faith last time and take the information that someone is telling us and then test it by the scriptures so that we know that this is something we should have faith in. Then when we have determined that it is according to the word we grab a hold of it and don't let go.
Romans 3:10 says... as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one;
Rom 3:11 no one understands; no one seeks for God.
Rom 3:12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one."
Rom 3:13 "Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive." "The venom of asps(a type of snake) is under their lips."
Rom 3:14 "Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness."
Rom 3:15 "Their feet are swift to shed blood;
Rom 3:16 in their paths are ruin and misery,
Rom 3:17 and the way of peace they have not known.",
Rom 3:18 "There is no fear of God before their eyes."
Rom 3:19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.
As you can see we all have a pretty long rap sheet. The text as we read above says none and no one not some or a few.

The whole world is accountable to God.
We are accountable to God yet we have nothing of ourselves that is worthy as a sacrifice for our sins. Nor is there anything we can “do” that will justify us. As you can see we are all sinners and Gods’ forgiveness is necessary for our righteousness and only the righteous will be with Christ in eternity. Lets continue looking in Romans.
Rom 3:20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
Rom 3:21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—
It is not through the law that we achieve righteousness, there is no animals sacrifice that can make us righteous anymore but through Jesus Christ’s atoning blood we can be considered holy and blameless to God. It is only through Jesus and our repentance to Him that we can experience any amount of righteousness.
Lets apply that to ushering in Christ. We can see, using John the Baptist’s ministry as an example that repentance is necessary to usher in Christ. All those people had come to John out of faith to enter the waters of repentance by baptism. So we have our faith and because we now have this assurance we can ask for repentance and know that we will have forgiveness because it is promised in the Word in…
1Jo 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1Jo 1:10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

Lets re-cap
We have to start with humility, know that you are a sinner, know that you must be righteous to enter the kingdom of God, know there is nothing you can do to obtain righteousness, know that repenting to Jesus Christ is the only way to obtain the righteousness required for entrance into heaven. Now lets put it together with faith and you are now in the process of ushering Christ into your life. Obedience and gratefulness will follow.

F.R.O.G. (Faith)

On my last post I wrote about ushering in Christ into our heart and lives. I spoke about the parade and how I watched people ushering in Santa Claus into their lives for the holiday season and how we should do that, and more, to usher in Christ. I gave you an acronym for it and called it F.R.O.G. Faith, Repentance, Obedience, and Gratitude. I am going to break down these four areas on this post and the following three. It is that important and it is good for us to hear over and over again. The first letter if F so we will begin with faith. I have written about faith before but God reveals more and more to me as I grow. So some of this you will have heard before and some of this will be new.
The basic premise behind faith is trust. Faith is the persuasion of the mind that a certain statement is true. Notice that does not in itself make the statement true. You just believe it to be true. There is a good or proper faith and then there is bad or improper faith. Faith in what is false and faith in what is truth. Both are faith, but one is saving faith and the other leads to wickedness and hell. Faith alone does not save us from an eternal hell. It must be a faith that believes that no one comes to the Father but through Jesus the son. It must be a faith that believes that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. It must be a faith that believes that not by works can anyone enter into the kingdom but by the works of Christ Jesus and Him paying our penalty on the cross can we have eternal life. One could have all the faith in the world that if he does enough good deeds or just takes communion once a month that he will go to heaven. But that kind of faith will send you to hell. No matter how much you believe it is true it does not make it true.
Blind faith can be a fatal mistake.
Faith must be directly accompanied with knowledge. Galatians chapter 2 verse 16 says yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. If one did not know that that verse was in the Bible then they may believe that works can save them. So you can see that without knowledge, faith can be very dangerous and I believe that is why there are so many odd beliefs and faiths out there today. We have to test everything with the Word and if it does not line up then don’t put any faith in it. Romans 10:17 says So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.
Now that we know the difference between good faith and bad faith, or at least how to identify it. Lets go a little further. Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Once you have identified what you should have faith in, you need to grab hold of it and not let go. Believe in it like your life depends on it. It is our faith (in the right things) that shields us from the enemy’s darts. Ephesians 6:16
So if we want to start ushering in Christ we need to work on our knowledge of the word so we know what to believe and know what to have faith in.
FAITH IS THE VICTORY