Be the Joy!

Joy.  We glitter wooden ornaments with the word.  We see it inscribed on Christmas cards.  We proclaim it in song: “Joy to the world.”  

It is the Christian’s claim.  We are people of joy.  

Joy is powerfully attractive.  Not the smug happiness of having everything but the basic foundational attitude that there is in fact much to rejoice about in this world.  That despite today's natural disaster, the world God made is good.  Despite Satan’s depredations, the people God called are declared righteous and holy.  Despite all of our short term sorrows, despite death, sin, and terror, Jesus has triumphed and will continue to reign until His Father has put all things under His footstool. 

This is how and why Christians are people of joy. 

Not pie in the sky fools but people grounded in the solid anchor of hope in the face of every ugly storm Satan sends.

This attitude is entirely refreshing to a world bathed in anger, cynicism, hatred, and disgust.  To a jailer in Phillipi considering suicide, the sweet song of joyful prisoners was the sound of hope. Our joy in troubles echoes that ancient hymn. Peter instructs us to stand ready to give an answer for that hope. 

This Christmas season, let me encourage you to do something joyful.  Wish every Scrooge a merry Christmas.  Got the extra mile to bring delight to someone with less reason to rejoice than you.  (Say a dozen Christmas cookies to an elderly neighbor?)  Share your Christian long-view that when our Lord returns He will set this old world to right, rebirthed in a new heavens and new earth, a world fulfilling today’s little joys with the great joys of eternity!  And smile, friend.  Smile. And let the world know that God has given us something to smile about. 

Helene

PS: There will be another video to share soon!  Keep an eye out for in your email or the Facebook page.  (What?  You are not on the email?  Subscribe here and get the PDF: 21 days to Evangelism!)

PSS: If you were looking to buy one of my books to give for a Christmas present, time is almost up! 

The Transformation We All Long For

Paul has a vision of new creation: Christians full of God's will not fighting it at every stage, wise not worldly.  They can be worthy of their Lord, make their Father happy, do His good work and know more about Him all the time.  They can be strong with His strength, patient and faithful.  Christians who rejoice!

 For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.

For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:9-14).

I want that! Not an apostle pouring himself into prayer on my behalf-although that would be nice-but to be transformed!  Don't you?

 Yet instead we find ourself in a dry and dusty place.  A place without joy, or growth, or excitement.  

We don't just visit this spiritual desert; some of us built a little shack there (or even a church) and made it our home.  We might even have forgotten that there is anything beyond the Christian to-do list.

Prayed.  Check.

Went to church.  Check.

Read my Bible.  Check.  

Does that sound like what Paul was praying for?  Is that the Christian life he had in mind?

What will it take to transform us?  One by one, family by family, Bible class by Bible class, congregation by congregation into the wise and worthy workers we want to be?

I think I know!  Check out the video below for some thoughts!

Want to see more?  Watch the second video: Reading Your Bible Better. And the third: A Cold and Graceless Way. 

Helene

PS. Are you looking for that book we were talking about? You can buy it now and when you give the book as a gift I have a free gift for you! Check it out! 

Find me linking up at Friday Frivolity, Create with Joy, Mommy Moments, Sunday Thoughts, Create with Joy, Inspiration Monday,  Darling Down Diaries, 

Declaring His Generations

The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham:

      

So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations.

(Matthew 1:1 and 17)

Matthew opens his gospel by declaring the generations of Jesus Christ. Fourteen recorded ancestors starting from the covenant with Abraham to bless the world through his seed.  Fourteen generations later the promise to David that he would have a son to sit on his throne for all eternity.  Fourteen generations since the shame of Israel when the presence of God left his temple.

And now Matthew declares that God has brought the fulfillment in his generation of all those generations of waiting.  The seed that will bless all mankind has come into the world.  The king who will reign forever has come to take His throne.  The presence of God has returned to Israel.  

Let us join Matthew in a shout of song.  Joy to the world!  The Lord is come!  In our day, in our generation as in theirs, the world is blessed, the King reigns, and God is come!  

Ready for more Christmas Posts?

Pregnancy Announcements

Jesus' Wish List

The Only Happy Wife

This post dates from several years ago but seemed to be a perfect way to end our mini-series on marriage. I am thrilled to share with you that the dear daughter in this story is now our sister in Christ.  

Recently I sat at the kitchen table and had a belly-laugh with my husband.  The two of us are sometimes like conjoined twins.  Except backwards.  Two bodies, one brain with the same bizarre sense of humor.  I could try to explain the joke; it was all about prayer, confession and this book we've been reading, but I assure you it would fall flat. Snorting, I laid my head down on the kitchen table catching a glance of my eldest daughter rolling her eyes at her crazy parents. 

The Joy of the Lord

I recently read a book, Mastering Life Before It's Too Late, by Robert J. Morgan.  I'll be reviewing the book as a whole soon, but today I'd like to share a small bit of Scriptural truth he pointed out that has changed my outlook.  "The perception that God is akin to a grumpy old man is a satanic lie that casts a depressing shadow over our spirits." His point is that when the Bible talks about the joy of the Lord, it isn't only the joy that He gives us, but the joy He has within Himself.  We should be joyful, not only because he told us to, but because our God is a God of joy!  

Teaching and Admonishing Yourselves

Melissa and I have been interrupted recently by RL (that's Real Life, for those of you that don't speak blogger).  She's been on vacation and getting a second child started in school.  I've been away from home for a month traveling and preparing to restart homeschooling and my regular teaching schedule for the University.  In the midst of this, our friend Dene from Flightpaths which we've mentioned before offered to let us borrow an article from her archives.  We struck on this gem.  Melissa and I have frequently dwelt on the idea of how much singing helps us keep our minds focused on the things of God but neither of us had thought of it quite this way. ~ Helene 

Joy

Back in the fall, our congregation had a Gospel Meeting.  For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a Gospel meeting is similar to a revival.  We have a service every night from Sunday to Wednesday, complete with singing, prayer, and a sermon.  The sermons are usually delivered by a guest preacher about some particular theme.  As tough as it can be to get three children to church four nights in a row, I am so glad we made the effort.  The preacher we had was truly a delight.  He was an older man who had years of preaching behind him.  Long after Brother Pate's lessons fade from my mind, I will remember the joy he exuded with every word he said, every smile he smiled and every song he sang.  He loved children and took delight in giving them their own lesson every night.  On the last night, he led the children, along with the adults, in a song I had never heard, "Isn't it Grand to Be a Christian?" I smiled the rest of the evening.

The Wall

How often have you devoted your mind on a goal only to get to a point in that quest where you hit a brick wall?  The wall is so thick that you can't get through it no matter how hard you try.  When we get to this point there seems to be only two choices: we can either give up, or we can reevaluate and adjust in order to keep going.  I will admit, usually my strategy has been to give up.

 

Whatsoever Wednesday Revisited

It was an undercooked oatmeal day.  We eat oatmeal at our house when we are all out of eggs.  Oatmeal is the back up breakfast.  Things aren't running on all 4 wheels if it's an oatmeal morning.  This Sunday morning the complaints were a bitter murmur: the oatmeal wasn't salty enough, sweet enough or cooked thoroughly.  That's the kind of thing that gets a day off to a bad start around here.

 

Sing of His Beauty

I have never been a huge lover of the Psalms.  Perhaps it is a carryover of my dislike of poetry.  While the division of this reading schedule has helped me not get so overwhelmed by a huge dose of poetry, I find that it sometimes makes me lose the overall flow and thought of an individual poem.  This week I read Psalms 33 which really struck a chord in my heart.  This chapter begins by telling us to "sing for joy in the Lord."