Have you seen my Joy?
Illus. By Chris Jordan
A little girl once went to visit her grandmother in the country. Things were fine until Sunday. This lady went to a very old-fashioned church that kept the Sabbath by forbidding all work, fun, playing.
The little girl woke up Sunday and started right off playing and laughing, as little girls do. Her grandmother immediately rebuked her for breaking the Sabbath. The little girl quieted down, went to church and later went for a walk out by the barn.
She went over to an old mule, a droopy eyed, sad faced, long-eared mule. She looked at the mule for a while, and said, “Mr. Mule, you look like you go to my grandmother’s Church!”
Does anyone remember the old chorus?
Joy is the flag flown high from the castle of my heart, the castle of my heart, the castle of my heart. Joy is the flag flown high from the castle of my heart, and the king is in residence there.
For a lot of people, they are caught on the treadmill of life and feel as though life is passing by with very little or no enjoyment on the horizon.
In the land where the common knowledge known around the world knows there is plenty for every one, far too many feel depressed. Some blame it on a midlife crisis, but the problem is far deeper. It’s a feeling of discontentment and the Self Actualization, that something really is missing and there is a void that needs to be filled!
The age-old question is what do we want from life? The answer is almost always a simple reply, to be happy!
It’s natural for people to struggle with happiness, after they have been through a disappointment or loss, or someone has stolen something from them.
But for far too many, real happiness in life eludes them! They experience no real unhappiness, but neither do they experience real joy either. They just trudge through life, on a course that will never take them to the destination, deep down they long to go to!
In the Bible the Words happiness and joy are almost interchangeable. In our spiritual walk, when we strive for the fruit of the spirit God has provided, Partaking of Gods joy imparts an internal change of our heart, mind and soul and fills the void we all have by Gods design, for a relationship with Him.
Illus. From the book “a life beyond amazing”
A worldwide study of 90,000 people showed the 10 richest countries in the world also had the highest rates of depression. United States had the second highest rate, exceeded only by France. This tells us that joy and happiness arent dependent on wealth and circumstances. Those who have the most reason to be joyful are often the most depressed.
Far too many are guilty of playing the peanut and shell game, or the slight of hand game. Always trying to guess which shell the peanut of happiness is under, only to be continually disappointed by the wrong guess the road of bad decisions leads them down!
Far to many fall prey to the theft of their God given right! I’m not talking about the constitution here and our inalienable rights, this is far bigger than that. This is God’s covenant of relationship every Christian is entitled too, but far to few realize and experience!
Satan is and has always been in the business of ripping off things that don’t belong to him!
Only, unlike today’s modern cyber thief, who try’s to steal your identity and get all they can at one time. I’m not saying the devil wouldn’t do that, but he’s even more crafty than the cyber thief.
Satan steals little by little, morsel by morsel, day after day and thing is, most people don't even realize they’ve been robbed until it's to late and everything they value is gone.
You see, satan not only attacks physically, but through words, actions, thoughts, dreams, ambitions and whatever else he views as an opportunity, to be taken advantage of!
Jesus said in JOHN 10:10 RSV
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
The MSG. Says: I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.
While some might be thinking of personnel items and I'm not saying the devil wouldn't try to try to get to you, by stealing your net worth. After all the devil took everything Job had including his possessions and his family.
But the devil doesn't need your car or your house, or your money, he is more interested in stealing all the Spiritual treasures that you have access to. The important things that have value with God are spiritual and of eternal significance.
For example; Our purpose for living.
If one were truly to experience Gods abundant life, a more and better life than they ever dreamed of, wouldn't that be enough to take care of all of our wants, needs and desires, we would ever have?
"It is" and there is no one who knows that better than the devil
( Because the devil has had it all, Done it all and seen it all) he knows what the abundant life God has for us is all about! Remember the devil was once the worship leader in heaven, that’s why he continually tries to steal away everything about the abundant life and I mean "everything"!
You can have all the riches in the world, but without The Lord they are just an empty, lonely place of existence! The devil doesn't want the world to experience one second of "a more and better life than you have ever dreamed of"
Because the accuser knows with God in your life, there is no reason for people to turn to Drugs, alcohol, meaningless relationships, and whatever else in the bag of tricks he has for people to fall prey too!
It's all distraction from the real problem anyway... Just Something…anything to try to fill the void, the hole in everybody’s life the devil knows actually exists from personal experience and try's to take advantage of!
The devil doesn't have any hope or joy, he forfeited any chance of hope and joy long ago!Thats why he tries to steal, kill and destroy everyone else's, that's his only plan.
But that's not God plan, I said that’s not Gods Plans! Gods plans we read about in the book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah 29:11 RSV
11. For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Satan knows of the good things God has in store for you, because he has tasted them and that's why he also knows once you do, he will have lost the battle to steal your joy forever!
That's why he continues the battle, even after a person becomes a Christian. In no way, shape, or form, does the devil want anyone to know, what their salvation experience in Jesus, really entitles them to....Which is "everything"....
That’s an awful lot! What can I say, that’s the kind of God we serve! And over the top, super abundant, life-giving extravagant God of abundance!
Ephesians 3:8-9 NKJ
8.To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,
9. and to make all see what is the fellowship[a] of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ;
The unsearchable riches of Christ, salvation in Jesus qualifies you to partake of everything that God has, no matter what the devil may try to tell you and cheat you out of!
*there are no other hoops to jump through,
*there are no other qualifications to be sought after!
*just You loving on God and God loving on you for eternity, if that’s what you choose!
Ephesians 3:14-19 MSG
My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.
Paul realized what he thought he knew, he didn’t know! What God has for His followers is a big deal! Gods love for those who love Him, is a huge deal! Unscalable, unplumbable, to extravagant to ever exhaust the possibilities in the experience of relationship, yet completely attainable!
God made man to find fulfilment in Him…. Through a relationship, with His own Son, and his awareness of the abundant life God has made available has been stolen from Him!
Because anyone who would read what we just read and not want to experience it and live it, clearly is not aware of its abundant availability!
Yes you have to experience it, before the devil will ever relent from his attack!
And that is why, even for those who are Christians the devil has a strategy for theft, to steal anything he can.
And that strategy is...."The loss of our first love for Jesus".... The overwhelming joy we felt when we asked Jesus in our heart to be our Lord and Savior!
Oh we still love the Lord and we still come to church, at least some do! But far to many don’t and all the statistics show the same decline in society’s attitude and attendance!
What happened to all the energy and passion, Christians used to have?
You know...Everybody ought to know, Everybody ought to know, Everybody ought to know, "Who Jesus Is"?
I’ve got the joy joy joy joy down in my heart, where? That’s the question, where is society’s desire to have and experience the joy of the Lord?
Illus. By Steve Lotze
Anyone ever heard the story of Chippie the parakeet? Well anyone who owns a parakeet knows cleaning a birds cage is a hassle, right?
Chippies owner was vacuuming feathers off floor – brilliant idea! – vacuum bottom of cage… another brain storm idea! The phone rang, and she turned to pick it up… and "ssssopp!" No more Chippie! – problem solved! -
The birds owner gasped, put down the phone, turned off the vacuum, and opened the bag. There was Chippie -- still alive, but stunned.
Poor thing covered in dust – so she raced to the faucet – held Chippie under the running water. – wet and shivering she wondered now what?
Of course she did what any compassionate bird owner would do . . . she reached for hair dryer and blasted Chippie with hot air. Poor Chippie.
A few days later, Chippie’s owner was asked how the bird was doing. "Well," she replied, "Chippie doesn’t sing much anymore, Chippie kind of lost his joy-- he just sits and stares."
Isn’t that how we respond to trials? Life sometimes takes the joy out of our sails and the song right out of our hearts huh?
Society’s desire and get up and go, didn’t get up and leave, the devil steals our joy every chance he gets from us! Our zeal and our intensity don’t evaporate. Satan steals the hot embers, a little bit at a time one by one, until the fire eventually all but dies out!
Some might say well when I got saved I was an energetic teenager. Oh really?
Has it been so long that time has taken away your breathe? Are you still breathing?
I want to remind you the bible says, "Let Everything That Has Breathe....(that’s right) Praise The Lord!" The call to praise the Lord never goes away!
TBS. In 2 Corinthians 3:16-18 MSG
16-18 Whenever, though, they turn to face God as Moses did, God removes the veil and there they are—face-to-face! They suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We’re free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.
Think back for a moment, can you remember your first encounter with God?
Wasn't that what our first love was all about, when Jesus entered our hearts and for the first time we realized, that God was a living presence, the new life began and we were free,
What happened to the joy and the passion? It may have not seemed like this, but the devil started trying to steal them, the very moment of your salvation!
It's time we got back to the basics and rekindled that first love we first had!
There has been a lot of promises made to God in and throughout everyone’s lives. And the joy of the Lord can be found in the fulfillment of those promises, because God is standing by to help you in the pursuit of each and everyone of them!
Once there was a stirring inside of you, but then you got discouraged, maybe something happened and something went wrong. Maybe someone or something hurt you or stole something from you?
That’s what happened to David and his mighty men. That’s what they found when they came home form battle. The devil and the enemy, had stolen everything they owned.
1st Samuel 30:6 NKJ
6 Now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.
8. So David inquired of the Lord, saying, “Shall I pursue this troop? Shall I overtake them?”
And He answered him, “Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them and without fail recover all.”
17. Then David attacked them from twilight until the evening of the next day. Not a man of them escaped, except four hundred young men who rode on camels and fled.
18. So David recovered all that the Amalekites had carried away, and David rescued his two wives.
19. And nothing of theirs was lacking, either small or great, sons or daughters, spoil or anything which they had taken from them; David recovered all.
Why am I telling you this story?
Because if you are ever going to recover, what has been stolen from you, with the Lords help, you are going to have to fight back, to recover it!
The devil will put up a battle, but he can be overcome and defeated, he is no match for the presence and power of God you have available in your life! Both have been available from the very first moment you believed!
The devil has tried and been somewhat successful at wrecking humanity, more so in recent days than he ever has been, it seems. Doom and gloom are running rampant and people are doing everything they can to escape reality!
I never thought in my lifetime, I would witness people doing drugs that would age you 20 yrs overnight and make your teeth fall out of your head God designed to last a lifetime, just to escape reality for a few fleeting moments. Did you?
Today we need to come together and to say wait a minute wait just a minute, enough is enough!
Were not giving up our joy....Our sons joy....
Our daughter, wife’s, husbands, friends, families joy or opportunity for God’s abundant life, for one more minute!
God would have me tell you the same thing He told David!
“Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them and without fail recover all.”?
A. W. Tozer, a wonderful devotional writer said this:
The widest thing in the universe is not space; it is the potential capacity of the human heart. Being made in the image of God, it is capable of almost unlimited extension in all directions. And one of the world’s greatest tragedies is that we allow our hearts to shrink until there is room in them for little besides ourselves.
I encourage you to open your heart, the way you did the very first time then ask God to fill it with the joy that he has always had planned for you. To take you to the heights, and let you plumb the depths of His love and every dimension of the incredible adventure He has planned for you!
