Searching for JOY - Part 5

Thursday, June 29, 2023

And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.  So it is right that I should feel as I do about all of you, for you have a special place in my heart . You share with me the special favor of God, both in my imprisonment and in defending and confirming the truth of the Good News.  Philippians 1:6-7

Being assured of some things in life is a necessity.  Without a certain amount of confidence you cannot function like God intended.  What are you absolutely certain about?  Death and taxes?  Government corruption?  Long Sunday sermons? 

What really important things are you certain about?  You know, stuff that will still matter a hundred years from now.  Paul was convinced about salvation.

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.  No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 8:38-39

Are you that certain of heaven?  If you are, let me remind you that heaven is a place better than any other – and it's yours!  Listen, if that doesn't produce genuine joy in your soul, your joy bone is broken!

There's a certain joy about participating together in kingdom work.  There is a camaraderie that develops when people work together.  Now, there’s no doubt that you can certainly experience cooperative spirit and a family atmosphere in your job, civic work, or helping a neighbor.  But, there is nothing better than kingdom work, sharing in God's vineyard.  The reason is that we not only participate together, we participate together in the grace of God.

This letter to the Philippians:

·       is a call to the community of faith (away from our isolation);

·       it is a call to self-denying serving (away from our selfish ways);

·       it is a call to standing for Christ-likeness and Godly living (despite today's pluralistic trends)…

·       it is a call to respect and cooperation between men and women of God, and all persons – a partnership in the gospel. 

·       and it is, thankfully, a call away from Mudville – a place of no joy, into the matchless joy of the Kingdom of God. 

And there we would find our purpose, our peace, our prayers in partnership, our persuasion, our participation in the gospel, and our joy ...real joy!

For You Today 

Let’s end our time today with a prayer:

Father, often we are so flat and joyless.  That’s so different than what Jesus told his first disciples…that he had come and shared with them so that his joy would be in them, and their joy would be complete. 

Jesus, talk to us like that; place your joy in us – fill us so that it’s bubbling-up from within, and running all over anybody we meet. 

We pray in the Name of the Father, Because of the Son, Cooperating with the Spirit…Amen!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  

 

Title Image:  via Pixabay.com   Images without citation are in public domain.   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©   

Searching for JOY - Part 4

Wednesday, June 28, 2023

May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.  Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God.  

Philippians 1:2-3

We left off yesterday with discovering a sense of purpose for your life.  That is an intregal step to experiencing the joy of peace through prayer.

Here is a marriage Paul performed - the words grace and peace.  Grace is the Greek word, peace is the Hebrew.  The order is theological; grace comes first (from God’s forgiveness), and then the gift of peace follows, flooding our soul with joy. 

If we read our times correctly, many people are looking for peace, but are looking in all the wrong places. 

·       Politicians negotiate treaties, supposing that peace is the result. 

·       We look to police to keep the peace (their title is "peace officer"), supposing that legal order passes for inner peace (joy). 

·       The popularity of drugs shows us the craving for peace, as people attempt to gain escape velocity from the war (within and without) by getting high for a few hours. 

The high that is really needed is grace.  You cannot experience peace until you've known God’s grace; both are a gift from God.  There can never be a friendship with God, peace that passes understanding, until there is a settlement of the wages of sin.  The joy of peace comes after the gift of grace through the cross.  The order is important.  Peace comes after the grace.  That is the prelude to having joy when you pray, because prayer can never be heard in Heaven by those who have not settled the sin issue first.

Whenever I pray, I make my requests for all of you with joy, for you have been my partners in spreading the Good News about Christ from the time you first heard it until now.  Philippians 1.4-5 

The Philippian church had been faithful.  Their gifts, prayers, and encouragement had followed and undergirded Paul throughout his ministry.  It is wonderful to have faithful people who love you, and whom you can count on in the lean times to lift you in prayer to the Father. 

For Paul it was like watching his children grow up and outdo him.  My father came to all my high school football games.  Both Mom and Dad were there at all the important times in my life.  In a way only a person who knows he's loved can understand, I do understand that they rooted for me to be everything God wants me to be.  And they kept me in prayer daily; joy does that.

For You Today 

That’s the partnership in the gospel – the joy of casting your prayers with those you love and work with in Christ’s mission.  Paul's partnership with the Philippian church was joyfully connected at the prayer-joint.  Theirs was a partnership of prayer.  Frankly, there is no other way to serve Him.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  

 

Title Image:  via Pixabay.com   Images without citation are in public domain.   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©   

Searching for JOY - Part 3

Tuesday, June 27, 2023

Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God.  Whenever I pray, I make my requests for all of you with joy, for you have been my partners in spreading the Good News about Christ from the time you first heard it until now.  And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.  Philippians 1:3-6

There’s a question that must be answered before leaving all the “Mudville” stuff:

Who are the most joyful people?

It stands to reason that believers who practice their faith would be the most joyful.  As participating partners in the faith we share together the mystery and splendor of the gospel ... and that produces some things:

JOY OF PURPOSE

Paul called himself a servant.  The word literally means “slave”.  That doesn’t sound too joyful, but in ancient times a servant could come and go as he pleased, within certain limits.  A slave, however, was a lifetime property of his master.  Paul humbly addressed himself as a slave of Jesus Christ. 

It takes a great deal of humility to enslave yourself to another.  What can make a person do something like that?  Paul sensed that being In Christ was greater than anything else life offered.  Paul was a "mainstream mover and shaker" of the highest order!  Then he met Jesus on the road to Damascus, and he discovered all that self stuff was empty – empty – empty!  Paul had been climbing social, political, and personal ladders, but compared to the loveliness of Christ, all that personal fulfillment stuff paled, lost its attractiveness, and faded into oblivion. 

Paul used the phrase In Christ or In the Lord some 150 times in his epistles.  Much like a fish lives in water, Paul could feel the close, comforting, compelling presence of Jesus in every waking moment.  Paul had given himself over to the cause of Christ – it had become his purpose.  There is something unique and joyful about people who are driven from within, in a noble cause that is from above. 

In the novel, The Man Who Lost Himself^[1] a detective is trailing a man in Paris.  He wants to know if the man he was after stopped at a certain hotel.  He went to the clerk at the desk and gave his own name, asking if he was there.  He knew he wasn't registered; he wanted to have the clerk search the register so he could peek!  But, to his surprise, the clerk looked up and said, Yes, he has been looking for you.  He's in room #40; I'll have you shown right up.  What could the detective do?  He followed the clerk to the room, whereupon opening the door, the man came face to face with another man who looked remarkably like himself, just 20 years older.

The story behind that story is that there is a person out there whom you must face someday.  It is the person you're becoming.  How is that happening?  The purpose to which you give yourself will define the person you will become.  Paul gave himself to Christ as Lord and Master – slave for life! 

For You Today 

The spiritual principle is that the slave will do the Master's will, and in the doing, become like the Master.  In Christ, Paul's life was purpose-filled, purposeful; he called it the joy set before him.  A partnership in the gospel gives joy of purpose.  Tomorrow we will look past purpose to peace and prayer.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  

 

Title Image:  via Pixabay.com   Images without citation are in public domain.   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©  

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[1]Sitwell, Osbert, THE MAN WHO LOST HIMSELF, (St Clair Shores, Mich, Scholarly Press, 1971)

Searching for JOY - Part 2

Monday, June 26, 2023

Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God.  Whenever I pray, I make my requests for all of you with joy, for you have been my partners in spreading the Good News about Christ from the time you first heard it until now.  And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.      Philippians 1:3-6

We ended yesterday’s thoughts with the question:  Can you really experience joy?  We can all probably agree on the definition of joy; the main question is:  what produces it, and how can we have joy in our everyday life, continuously? 

I want to show you two realities about joy – first, the characteristics of our contemporary culture’s stab at joy; then, tomorrow – the Apostle Paul’s thinking. 

Culture Characteristic #1 – We are ALONE

Philosopher Thomas Wolfe said, Loneliness is and always has been the central and inevitable experience of every man.^[1]  In the contemporary scene we are isolated behind our air-conditioned walls, transfixed moth-to-light-like, to our blaring computer games on Smartphones and DVD players; we are protected from interruption by our straight-to-voicemail.  Isolated from, and insulated against human touch, we find out about ourselves from the nightly news.  And the news is lonely!  There's little joy in that Mudville.

Culture Characteristic #2. We are ASSERTIVE

From the first stamping of little, two-year-old feet that don't want to go where mother said, to the constant mashing of the horn buttons on freeways, assertiveness is the America we've come to know and despise.

 Sacrifice and service have become foreign words in America; corporate raids and takeovers make billions, and no longer does it matter what happens to the person on the assembly line, or the family having to stand in line for a handout.

Culture Characteristic #3. We are AMBIVALENT

Ambivalence is a strange development for a land of such passionate beginnings.  America was born in the hearts of people with fire in their bellies.  There was a sense of right and wrong; of good and evil.  Today’s culture is as dependent upon the direction of the prevailing winds, as on any code of morals or values.  A newspaper columnist pointed out how this slide towards ambivalence has made us a nation of orphans where child-guidance is concerned:

We are infinitely more comfortable dealing with each other in the gray vastness of 'how does it feel for you?' than in terms of right and wrong.  One look at the status of our children and we know that what we are doing isn't working.  Children need right and wrong.^[2]

One of the reasons our children take drugs, take little interest in life, and take other students’ lives is that they see no firmness of commitment to an ethic, ideals, or to each other.  Options dominate our thinking. 

·       If I don't like this circumstance I'll change it. 

·       If I can't change it I'll go elsewhere, where it feels better to me. 

I like you alright, but if you do something that displeases me I just might 'option you out' with a .357 magnum – or a divorce -- or an abortion – or some cocaine – or even just a glance.  Hey!  I can take you or leave you, dude! 

For You Today 

Alone…Assertive…and Ambivalent is our culture.  But we were created for better than that; we are hard-wired for community and its’ blessing…more tomorrow.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  

 

Title Image:  via Pixabay.com   Images without citation are in public domain.   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©  

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[1] Thinkexist.com

[2]Edwards, Drew, Article, VIEWPOINT, (Jacksonville, Fl, The Florida Times-Union, Oct 3,1992)

 

With Ears Like That...

Tuesday, February 21, 2023

The Lord says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life.  I will advise you and watch over you.  Do not be like a senseless horse or mule that needs a bit and bridle to keep it under control.”  Psalm 32:8-9

God made us different from the rest of sentient beings (fish, animals, and plants). God gave humans consciousness (awareness) of meaning and the importance of intrapersonal connection.  More than merely an affiliation with our own species, God gave us an innate sense of the purpose and worth of each other’s existence, as well as the sacredness of all creation.  And on top of that gift God placed a requirement that we use all that awareness better than a stubborn mule. 

We humans are a particularly strange lot, especially in our lack of intelligent choices.  One would imagine humans possessing sensory understanding, or (if you wish) ears like a mule , humanity might pay better attention to our Creator’s instructions.  That is so strange, considering God has given us a promise (as the Psalmist clearly stated) of guidance to the pathway of a better life.  And it has been so from the opening gun.  Adam and Eve were told not to dine on one particular tree…that lasted a half-second.  Cain and Abel were told what to bring for a worship offering.  Cain completely ignored God’s instructions, got angry with jealousy, and killed his brother for spite.  If you’ve ever had the responsibility of a parent, to make important choices for your child, you know first-hand what that child will do when you say clearly, authoritatively, and lovingly:  Child, don’t go near that road.  In the next heartbeat he or she will be dancing on the pavement!

We have ears to listen and, generally, turn them to a deaf side.

Occasionally, however, there is a revival of God’s Spirit, like the one currently in progress at Asbury University.  

By many social media accounts and news outlets, it isn’t a wild jumping-over-the-pews, shouting goofiness.  Rather, its calm sitting in His presence, praying for each other, boldly trusting that waiting before God for His next word is more important than classes, jobs, spreadsheets, schedules, or anything else in which we dabble-away our time.  It is joy without giddy foolishness.  It’s healing of the spirit, building of the spirit, and connection with God’s family.  It is, frankly, koinonia, the common Greek word used in the New Testament to describe how the real church acts when they truly listen to God’s voice.  It is the combined atmosphere of community, communion, sharing, and deeply-held intimacy.[1]  This is the spiritual garden where God’s Holy Spirit produces excellent fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control[2].

For You Today 

The spiritual fruit of revival begins in the church, when God’s people, who have surrendered Lordship to Jesus Christ, promising to walk in the Spirit, nail their sinful desires to the cross, and invite the transforming power Jesus offers, to change their deaf ears to deeply-listening ears.  And with ears like that…there’s no telling what good Christ will produce in your life!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

Oh! What Joy  and  The Problem With Pharisees      

Images:  Title Pixabay.com   Images without citation are either personal property of the author, or in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

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[1] For more understanding read κοινωνία in Wikimedia.com

[2] See Galatians 5:22-25

In Times Like These (or any time)

Tuesday, April 14, 2020

My soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me.  Psalm 63:8(KJV)

A few weeks ago I sent an email to all our Rocky Road followers to encourage us as we continue under the duress of the Coronavirus pandemic.  Included in the message were four questions:

1. What hope sustains you in this crisis?

2. What are you doing to stay positive?

3. How is this crisis challenging your faith?

4. How has God spoken to you in all this?

One family sent a thoughtful response which pretty much nails my thoughts on what sustains us during life’s crises, and even when there is no threat:

We may not send a video but would love to share our answer to question #2.  We read from the Holy Bible daily, (we actually started our daily devotions as a couple approximately 18 months ago). We sing a hymn or two together and lift praises and requests through prayer to our heavenly Father.  These very basic actions deliver the answer to the other three questions: they deliver hope, develop our faith and allow God to speak to us.[1] 

This response is dear to my heart because it so reflects what my experience has been in writing these devotional thoughts; God’s Word says it this way:

I rise early, before the sun is up; I cry out for help and put my hope in your words.  Psalm 119:147

The truth, plain, unvarnished, undiminished, undiluted is that we need a guide for this life as much as I would need a technology expert if I were to open the back of my computer and start messing around with all the little wires and such.  We come into this world with precious little understanding of God, other than that stamp of His being on our souls.  Daily seeking in hot pursuit after knowing God is the calling of every human spirit.  It is that seeking after God that made King David and his son, Solomon wise.

It is amazing, and surprising just how a small thing like choosing to come close to God in each morning changes everything.  In the quiet of a morning (minus the snoring of my little dog who “studies” with me each day), God’s Word speaks to my heart, and I cannot tell the numbers of times there have been little dawnings in my soul, awakenings that have charted my course for that day, whether it requires social distancing or not. 

But, it’s not in the method (early morning, late evening, standing, sitting, which version of the Bible), it’s all about the surrender of the heart.  A surrendered, willing heart is God’s fertile soil for what He wants to accomplish in and through a person.

And it is all personal, which extends to the circles of relationship all around you.  When God speaks to your heart in and through His Word, and that heart hears, and that courage is called-forth, kingdoms of darkness are broken with the entrance of light.  

Sometimes it’s as simple as carrying a meal to a homebound person or taking time with the next-door neighbor’s child who wants to talk.  Or stocking your car with bottles of water, or McDonald’s coupons to hand to that homeless guy you’ve passed too many times without meeting a need for the daily bread that was his prayer in the sign he’s holding up with a stained, leathery hand.  God’s Word is more than a light for your path, and a lamp for your feet; it is also a word of encouragement for the downtrodden through your actions.

For You Today

So, what did His Word speak to your heart today?  And will the rest of you hear it?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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Title Image:  Pixabay.com      Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For other posts on Psalm 68 see A Little More Light - Part 2 and Rescued

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[1] This email response is reprinted with permission.