Joy Killers

 “I know all the things you do. I have seen your hard work and your patient endurance. I know you don’t tolerate evil people. You have examined the claims of those who say they are apostles but are not. You have discovered they are liars. You have patiently suffered for me without quitting.

 “But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first!

^{Revelation 2:2-4}

The Shawshank Redemption^^

Ask yourself, what is joy?

We all have personal definitions of what joy is, here's a few from some friends.

RL- fruit of the spirit. So without Gods spirit you and people around you would only experience happiness. Happiness is momentary. Joy is something you carry with you in any situation. Joy is found in faith. Faith is strengthened thru trial.

M- peace with Gods perfect will.

HJ (recently lost her great grandmother)- A lot of people think it means happy but for me it means so much more than that. Joy keeps you going when times are rough, it has a sense of hope to it. Romans 12:12 "Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer" my favorite bible verse

CM- God is great and He knows what He is doing. Gods will is meant for good but happiness is temporary. There was no room for happiness when Jesus was carrying that cross. BUT his joy was complete because it was His Fathers will and He had the bigger picture in mind. salvation for humanity.

SO first, before reading, ask yourself this: what kills my joy?

 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

James 1:2

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,

So, How many of you remember how you felt when you first truly fell in love with Jesus? 

(think about it)

     As a deer pants for flowing streams,
          so pants my soul for you, O God.
(Psalm 42:1 ESV)

You felt like psalm 42:1 right?
Like a deer, or any other animal, you were thirsty for real, satisfying water, the most important substance to a living being.
And there He was when you turned around.

Our redeemer. 

The savior of the world. 

Our hero.

Who killed the lights?We were all ON FIRE! However, after a year, a month, or even a day later, do we live as if we need Jesus like He is the most important substance to man?

In most cases, we don't! But that doesn't mean that He isn't important.

So joy is eternal, happiness is temporary. True facts.

Paul's attitude was as long as I have the joy of Christ I can die satisfied

"To live is Christ, to die is gain"

Why is dying gain? Because we still have our joy. Where is our joy? Jesus. Who is alive.

 Even death could not hold Him down.

Are we joyful this week? Yesterday? Today? And why not?

Is it because God isn't as powerful or as beautiful or as close as He was yesterday?
And if it is a matter of His closeness, Where is the separation coming from? Sin?

First off, read Romans 8:31-39.

 (read)

(read)

(read!)

Nothing can separate us from God's love.

 

However, SIN is powerful enough to make you feel like you are separated from God's perfect love.

Romans 5:12

As humans, our nature is to sin. You don't have to teach a baby how to hit or steal. Look around, we are sinful.
We are born of Adam. Thanks be to God that we can accept Christ as our King and be born again.

Here is David, and this is a piece of a Psalm from him after the whole Bathsheba deal..

    Let me hear joy and gladness;
        let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
    Hide your face from my sins,
        and blot out all my iniquities.
    Create in me a clean heart, O God,
        and renew a right spirit within me.
    Cast me not away from your presence,
        and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
    Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
        and uphold me with a willing spirit.

Psalm 51:8-12

All sin roots from the absence of this joy David speaks of in psalm 51.

Things that we idolize in our lives turn our eyes away from our Father, who loved us first.

Things that we love more than Him will eventually steal the joy that comes with complete comfort from the Lord.

This is why the text says,

RESTORE TO ME THE JOY OF YOUR SALVATION

Because, when salvation of the Lord is on our minds, we do not get distracted by supermodels or guys that look like they could be on The Bachelor. Our eyes are on the real prize (Philippians 3:13-14). At the end, if we continue to chase these dry consolation prizes, we will end up realizing how much we wasted our lives chasing creations instead of the creator, who offers us eternity. 

Because, what do we do when we are not satisfied by water? We find any other substance that has more taste. What do we do when we are not satisfied by Jesus? We find other things that look good to the naked eye, or better yet, the uncircumcised heart(Romans 2:29). We don't notice that water is important until we get kidney failure. And then you would be wishing that you had listened to your parents sooner about the affects that soda and no water can give you.

Sometimes, we don't notice how important Jesus is to us until we are in a crazy situation; like David found himself in Psalm 51. And only then will we be wishing that we had listened to our Heavenly Father sooner.

And what did David cry out after he screwed up? LORD, KING, SAVIOR, RESTORE to me the joy of your salvation! What do we want in our hearts after we screw up? That feeling that we had when we first realized what God has done for us. The feeling of the HUGE burden lifted off of your shoulders. The feeling when you finally realized who exactly loved you first.

Because his joy was never absent. His first love (us) was on His mind the whole time. What's blocking our vision of Him? Let's remember His love, His obedience, His sacrifice, and His life! 

And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him.

Romans 6:8

He has offered us life. It's up to us to look towards the prize.

We are the joy killers

Locked Up

For the new year, a lot of people, like myself, get even more "fired" up for God! We use years as time increments for the evaluation of our lives, emotionally, mentally, financially, physically, and most importantly spiritually, and the fact that we believe that this is a whole new chapter in our lives, we set and raise standards for ourselves, intending on those standards to push us to grow in our faith.

As I evaluated my past year, I came across a quote, in a comment, on John Piper's Twitter.

Piper tweeted, "Even though this will not be a comfortable message tonight, I would like you to hear it."

(He was referring to the message he preached at Passion)

And as I glanced at the Tweet, I became curious as to what he was talking about, so I clicked it and viewed the comments. I could not have helped to notice this particular comment from a random man.

"Our Comfort has become our Cage."

My God. I became obsessed and convicted at THE SAME TIME. 

The second I read this brief, lonely statement on Twitter, it stuck in my brain. I wanted it on a necklace. I wanted it on my car (even though I don't currently have one). I wanted a tattoo of it on my neck with prison bars. And as the days passed by I now realize why I was so intrigued by the phrase.

It was because I am that guy that is in that cage.

For SO long I have wanted to be radically on mission, not even as much overseas, but here at my own University, in America, living for Jesus. And in my efforts to justify my comfort, my heart became convicted by the fact that I was not giving Jesus my all, with all of my life, like He had given me.

So instead of putting this mere comment on a car, on jewelry, or on my body, from here on (not just 2013) for the rest of my life I want that to be part of my heart. Not because it is the cool, hip, Christian thing to do, but because Jesus was uncomfortable! 

To really understand how Jesus challenged Himself to be uncomfortable, let's take a look at what His life was like in the bible.

• First of all, Jesus was not born into a rich family, but into a family that had to work to eat. Jesus was born in a manger.
• Jesus explained to His followers that He has no where to rest, or "lay His head." Luke 9:58
• Jesus constantly stood up for sinners, even though the world wanted Him dead because of it. John 8:7
• Jesus chose to be obedient and give His life to God, for us, by carrying an uncomfortably heavy cross, after being brutally beaten, with and uncomfortable crown of thorns piercing His head.

In Luke 14:27, Jesus tells us that if we do not carry our cross and follow Him, that we cannot be His disciples!

And with carrying that cross, there will come discomfort. And we only experience this because our sinful nature wants to do one thing, and the spirit wants to do another. We are born into sin and later resurrected with Christ as what the bible says, "a New Creation." (2 Corinthians 5:17) However, we are still living in the flesh that wants something totally different than the Spirit. The flesh and sinful nature that it causes is natural to us. Now the battle between the two collide, and when we go against the grain, discomfort occurs.

In Luke 14:27, Jesus is telling us all that this is not okay. He is telling us that there will be some uncomfortable decisions that you have to make, and He challenges us to count the cost before we follow Him! But, He is also telling us that if we remain comfortable where we are, do the same things as we usually do, & never step our of our comfort zone for the sake of love, that we are, if fact incarcerated by of comfort. We are building a wall that we cannot climb, & which will ultimately prevent us from experiencing the love of God and paradise. Hence the spectacular comment-

"Our Comfort has become our Cage."

In fact it is a cage that we have locked ourselves in. A selfish cage that prevents us from loving others as much as we should. A lethal cage that prevents us from helping and serving the lost and broken as much as we should. Paul and Peter and John and a lot of others that were radical about their faith and proclaimed it to the best of their ability, never locked themselves in a cage. As a matter of fact, I'm sure they would (and have) become incarcerated by soldiers threatening to take their lives before the day that they would become a slave to their comfort.

So before we disregard God's will and obedience to Him, and exchange that for our comfort, remember that we are enslaving ourselves. We have become a nation and a world that looks for satisfaction in ourselves rather than the One who tells us that He is our comfort!! Check these verses out:

Psalm 9:9
The LORD also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble.
Psalm 18:2 
The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.

Psalm 32:7 

You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance. 

John 16:33

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

And there is so much more from where that came from! The point of the matter is that when we are free from our own comfort, we will be able to give God more. We will serve Him and others better, love more, become even more missional (no matter the race, gender, culture, etc. of a person), and bring MORE GLORY TO HIS NAME. 

He deserves EVERYTHING, nothing less.

...one last time.

"Our Comfort has become our Cage."