“How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily?”
There is an old fable about a sale that Satan had on all of his great sins, Adultery, lying, envying, etc. were going at bargain prices and the demons were buying them up. One demon looked up on the top shelf and said, “I like all of the merchandise, but the one thing that I really want is the silver wedge I see on the top shelf, but there is no price on it.” Satan replied to him that “this wedge is not for sale. It is the wedge of discouragement and if I can get people discouraged all of the other sins will follow.” This is only a fable, but it tells the truth about discouragement. In my own life, I can’t remember a good thing that happened while I was discouraged. I think that I have matured enough not to let discouragement happen often, but it continues to raise its ugly head from time to time. I imagine that you know what I’m writing about. Think back: How many good things have happened in your life when you have given in to discouragement? When we feel discouragement coming on, we need to take it immediately to the Lord in prayer and , if possible, solve the situation that is causing the discouragement quickly. Satan loves to get hold of our discouragement and play it in our lives for all it is worth. What causes discouragement? I am not a psychologist, but I think that I know the genesis of discouragement. It begins when we start to feel sorry for ourselves. I have often said that every minute, every hour, every day that we feel sorry for ourselves is wasted time. In these moments, we are so focused on ourselves that we cannot see beyond ourselves and our "piteous" condition. It is very easy to go off on a “pity party.” When we are having such a party, we are actually feeding on our own junk. In Psalm 13 David was on a real journey into self pity. He wrote: “How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? forever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me? 2. How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? How long shall mine enemy be exalted over me.” David’s first mistake was when he thought that the Lord had forgotten him. Do you ever feel lthat God has forgotten you, or hidden Himself from you? Well, you can end that worry now. God will not hide from you. He will not forget you, nor will He hide Himself from you. His next mistake was that he was taking “counsel in his own soul.” This is what I mean when I say “eating our own junk.” When we are down and try to counsel ourselves, we make a big mistake. All we do is justify our own self-pity and convince ourselves that we have every right to feel sorry for ourselves. It has been said that “a person who has himself or herself for a lawyer has a fool for a lawyer.” I will add that a person who has himself or herself for a counselor has a fool for a counselor. Stop feeding yourself on your own junk and you will begin to get out of your self-pity and discouragement, and you will become productive again. David began to come out of his self-pity and discouragement in verse 3 when he asked God to “consider and hear me…” In other words he prayed an honest prayer to God. That’s right. When you are discouraged, pray! He also wrote “lighten mine eyes.” This means that David knew that he needed to look at his situation in a different, more positive way. David concluded the thirteenth Psalm in verses 5-6: “But I have trusted in thy mercy, my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. 6. I will sing unto the Lord, because He has dealt bountifully with me. ”David’s faith came to his rescue, and ours can too. Satan wants us discouraged, but God does not, and will help us come out of our self-pity and will help us out of discouragement. God will convince you, as He did David that you do not have to be discouraged and He will put a song in your heart. If you are discouraged, go to the Lord, and share your burden with a trusted Christian friend. Remember, you do not have to be discouraged. Bro. Joe
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“I remember the days of old…”
I have reached the age when I can “remember the days of old.” Frankly, they don’t seem like that long ago, but they were. It is humbling when people in their forties have never heard of things that were and are familiar to me. I asked two such preachers one day if they remembered the high heel shoes that men wore in the seventies. One of them said, “Brother Joe, how old do you think we are?” Well, it was a recent memory to me, but history to them. I sometimes look at the forties and fifties as “the good old days.” In some ways they were, but probably not as good as I remember. I have told people that I would go back to the fifties if I could take air-conditioning and medical science back with me. I have discovered that there are two ways to think about the “old days.” One is what I just referred to. We can look back on the past as being golden. What we don’t consider is that our memories have good filters, and we delete the unpleasant things. I remember reminiscing about the days that I was in a particular church. In my fantasy world, we had no problems whatever. When I was in the area one day, I visited the community. When I saw the old familiar places, all of the bad memories came back. I think that I probably had many more good memories there than bad ones of our time there, but it was not problem-free as it was in my memory. I think that you get the idea. Another way to look at the past is to let the negative things that happened to us make us bitter. All of us have had to deal with people who seemed to take some of the sweetness out of life for us – in a manner of speaking. Some people have terrible memories about their parents. Sometimes the resentment came because they did not honor and respect their parents; sometimes it came because the parents were really and truly bad parents. There were things that happened at school that humiliated us, either by fellow students or teachers. If we are not careful, we will become bitter and resentful by these things and others that I do not have the space to mention. I think that when we are reliving the past, either in a romantic way, or in a bitter way, we need to remember Paul’s admonition in Philippians 3:13-14: “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth to the things which are before, 14. I press toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Whether you view your past from a positive standpoint or a negative standpoint, it is the past after all. You can’t relive either good or bad days. What we need to do is to move on and make new good days, forgive the negatives from the past and move on with our lives. As the Bible says “while it is today” we need to make the best of our lives. We need to remember that we can visit the past, but we can’t relive it; therefore, we need to “forget those things which are behind and press on…” We do not need to rob ourselves of the joys and victories of the future because we are held up by the memories of successes or failures of the past. I remember a simple admonition that might help us as we live from day to day: “Only one life, twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.” Give the days to Him and let Him be a part of your present and your future and your life will be a success, because you have spent your days serving Jesus. There is no more rewarding life than that. Quit either reminiscing about your past or regretting your past and live today for Jesus. Now that is some good advice. Bro. Joe 1Chronicles 28:9: “And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy Father, and serve Him with a perfect (whole) heart and with a willing mind: for the Lord searches all hearts and understands all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek Him, He will be found of thee; but if thou forsake Him, He will cast thee off forever.”
This verse comprises David’s advice to Solomon as he begins his reign as Israel’s king. It is pertaining to the building of the temple. When I read that this morning, I thought that it was some very good advice. If you know Solomon’s history, you know that he did not abide by this advice fully, but it is still good advice for us today. David’s first advice was to “know thou the God of thy Father.” This is not just a good starting point, it is absolutely necessary. We have an advantage that Solomon did not have in that we can know Him through faith in Jesus Christ. David was encouraging Solomon to know God personally and not keep Him on the periphery of his life. I can’t speak for Solomon, but I can speak for us. The starting point of our service to God is to know Him personally through a faith relationship with Jesus Christ. David’s second advice was to “serve Him with a perfect (whole) heart.” Paul gave similar advice to servants in Colossians 3:22-23: “Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God: And whatsoever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men.” To be truly effective servants of God, we need to do everything that we do with all of our hearts. This means that we do not serve Him wholeheartedly only to do church work. Think how great it would be, however, if all of us served like this in our churches. We would surely have revival. Think of your own life. Do you do your daily job “heartily as to the Lord”? Do you do your job as a parent “heartily as to the Lord”? Do you sing in the choir, teach a Sunday School class, serve as a deacon, etc. “heartily as unto the Lord”? What a difference it would make in your daily life, your family life, and your church life if you did. David’s third advice was to serve God with “….a willing mind.” Obviously, it is not a good thing to serve God against our will. If we can’t do a thing with our whole heart and with “a willing mind,” then maybe God doesn’t want us to do it. I think that when we are willing servants of God, we will serve Him with good attitudes. If we see ourselves as serving God in everything that we do in life, we will have good attitudes in all that we do. This would make us better witnesses at work, at church, at school, at play, or wherever we are. We are reminded in Psalm 100:2 that we are to “serve the Lord with gladness.” I think that glad service comes from a willing mind and an open heart. Think of your attitude. Do you have a willing mind in all that you do? That is really a tall order, but it is a good one and we need to obey it as best we can. All of us will have good days and bad days, but we should never forget that we are God’s servants whether our day is good or bad. I’m sure that you have heard that advice is cheap. Well, this is not cheap advice. It is advice given directly from the Bible. It made me stop and think about my own service. It made me more intent on serving with a whole heart and a willing mind. I hope that it will have this effect on you. Bro. Joe “Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand.”
When an army is at war it cannot run away when the going gets tough; rather it must stand and fight. This is what Paul wrote about us in Ephesians 6:13. We are in a war and we must stand and fight, but not with the world's weapons. We need to stand against the devil, for he is our number one enemy. In Ephesians 6:11-12 Paul wrote: “Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” We have been given spiritual armor to protect us in this war. These weapons are truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, salvation, the word of God and prayer. We are not defenseless in this war. God has made it possible for us to stand and fight and not run away from the battle. We are always vulnerable to the “wiles of the devil,” but Jesus is not vulnerable and we stand in Him. However, we must never underestimate the power of the enemy. The devil’s wiles are many. If he cannot keep us from standing in one way he will try another way. He is smart, not as smart as Jesus, but he is smarter than us. This is why we need the “whole armor of God” as we fight this battle. We need to stand against the world system. The “world system” is that part of the world under the rule of the devil and is at war with the kingdom of God. If the devil can get us totally involved in the world system, he can succeed in getting our eyes off of Jesus. We must remember that Jesus warned His disciples that the world would not love them. It is true of us as well. He warned that if the world hated Him that it would hate us too. This has not changed. The world is not bothered about us as long we do not disturb their world, but if we get serious about Jesus we can look for hostility. We must witness and minister to this world, but we must not join its parade. We are in the world but not totally of it. We have dual citizenship. We have to live in the world, but not according to the world system. Paul wrote to the Romans that they were not to be “conformed to this world,” but to be “transformed by the renewing of (their) minds.” It is a message for us as well.To do this effectively, we must put on “the whole armor of God.” All of this ultimately means that we need to stand against sin. We need to be aware of the nature of sin. There are “sins of commission.” These are simply sins that we commit. The devil is good at getting us to do what he wants us to do. But we also need to be aware that there are “sins of omission.” That is, that we are not to just focus on what we should not do, but on what we should do as well. The devil does not want us to follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit, and will do everything possible to keep us from doing it. If the devil can keep us from doing what God wants us to do, he can keep us from standing against him. Therefore we must stand against our own sins. We cannot become so preoccupied with the sins of the world that we ignore our own sins. One of those famous “wiles” is to get us so focused on everyone else’s wrongdoing that we fail to notice our own. We are in a war that will continue until Jesus calls it to a halt. Prepare to do battle with the devil. Be aware that according to Ephesians 6:13-18, God has given us His armor. Let’s use it. Bro. Joe “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.”
When I was little boy we used to sing a chorus at the Smithville Baptist Church called “Joy Down in My Heart.” It went like this: “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy down in my heart, down in my heart, down in my heart, I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart, down in my heart to stay…” There were other verses, but it is this first verse that always comes up in my memory. One of my favorite themes as a minister has been about joy. I try to make it a theme of my daily life and not just a theme for preaching or writing. If I tried to convince you that I am happy all of the time, you would know that I was lying. But one thing that I learned from John 15:11 that has helped me to know that though I am not always happy, I always have joy. Jesus has placed His joy in my heart - “down in my heart to stay.” It is not always easy to explain what this means, because we confuse joy and happiness. They are not the same. A nice lady once asked me if I smiled all of the time. My answer to her was, “Heavens no. If I smiled all of the time, I would be lying a good part of the time.” If I smiled all of the time I would be happy all of the time. I am definitely not happy all of the time, and I doubt that anybody is. You see, happiness is a temporary thing. For example, your team wins the game and you are extremely happy, but the next week they lose and you are not happy. When good things happen to us, or to our children and grandchildren, we are happy, but when bad things happen we are not happy. Happiness just comes and goes, but joy we have always as a gift of Jesus. What does this eternal joy mean to us? First, it means that whatever we face in this life, we can rejoice in the fact that Jesus is in control. When I think of this, I think of an incident that happened when I was a little boy. We were singing the invitation hymn at a revival service at the Smithville Baptist Church. The preacher asked everybody who knew that they were saved and that they would go to heaven if they died that night to raise their hands. I looked up and my mama had raised her hand. I remember thinking, “I wonder how she knows that.” Well, I know personally now, but when mama died on September 9, 2010, I remembered that.(That's not all that brings joy about her, but it is one of the most prominent memories that I have about her.) I knew that she was a Christian and that her hope was in Jesus. Since her death, I often think of that incident and the joy of Jesus rises up in my heart. Mama is in heaven. I am not happy that she is no longer with us, but the joy of Jesus in me reminds me that I will see her again in heaven. Second, it means that when we are at the low points of life, we are not without joy. This came to me when I went through chemo-therapy in 2011 for lymphoma, and had colon surgery to remove a cancer in 2012. You know that I would be lying if I said to you that I was happy when I was skinny, undernourished and bald-headed at one point and in pain from surgery at another point. But I can tell you that I was, and am, fully aware of the presence of Jesus during all of this time. I don’t think that I have ever felt His love so fully and completely as I did during those times. I am not lying when I tell you that His joy came to my rescue and kept me from asking Him why, or complaining because of what I was going through, or blaming Him for letting this happen to me. Prayer came alive to me as never before, and the Bible spoke profoundly to my heart as never before. It wasn’t a happy experience, but it was an experience that brought forth the joy of Jesus that comforts me even to this day. I sincerely hope that you can sing, “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart to stay….” Bro. Joe “Great is our Lord. and of great power: His understanding is perfect.”
It is an understatement to say that our Lord is great. I don’t know if there is a word in any language that fully describes the greatness of God. Just think for a moment of His greatness in relation to size. It will almost blow our minds if we dwell on the immensity of God. Think of the size of the universe. To say the least it is immense. There are things out there that we have never discovered because they are so far away. Our God who created the universe is greater than that. Anywhere you go in the universe, God will be there. When David thought of the greatness of God, he wrote: “When I consider thy heavens, and the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou visitest him?” David felt downright insignificant when He considered the greatness of God. (Psalm 8:3-4) Further, David wrote: “Where shall I go from thy Spirit, or where shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take up the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.” Think of the greatness of the love of God. Jesus said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” This is what Jesus did. Jesus is God’s love in action. Jesus came to earth from heaven because of His great love for mankind. This was God’s plan from the very beginning. He knew that we would need to be saved and that we would need Him for that to happen. Out of His great love, God sent His Son and His Son “became sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” All of this was a result of His great love. It is also an understatement to say that God is powerful.He is all - powerful. God can do whatever He wants to do. We just need to be thankful to Him that what He wants to do ultimately works out for our welfare. If what He wants does not work out for our welfare, it is our fault not His. Jesus demonstrated the power of God in marvelous ways when He was here. He healed hopelessly sick people. He raised people from the dead. Only He could do that. John wrote about Jesus that “in Him was life and the life was the light of men.” The power of God resided in Jesus to the extent that life literally resonated from Him. Jesus Himself did not stay dead, for on the third day He arose. Even the weather could not stymie His great power. When Jesus’ disciples were in a small fishing boat in a storm on the Sea of Galilee, He simply spoke to the wind and waves and they ceased. Without God’s great power that just could not happen. Even the demons could not challenge the power of Jesus. They simply obeyed Him when He spoke to them. It is also an understatement to say that God’s understanding is perfect. I don’t think that pluperfect would be sufficient. God is all-knowing. There is nothing that we know that God does not know. There are a lot of things that we do not yet know, and will maybe never know, that God knows. This might be why many people who think that they are very smart do not believe in God. They just cannot understand one who knows everything. God knows everything about us, yet He still loves us. The Bible tells us that even the hairs of our heads are numbered. Don’t ever think that God does not understand what is going on in your life, whether good or bad. His understanding of us is perfect as well. Think of it: you serve a God who is great and powerful and whose understanding is perfect. Rejoice in that fact! Bro. Joe Love “…does not behave itself unseemly, seeks not her own, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil.”
(I got this thought from Vicki Davis on Facebook. It was originally from Edutopia on the first day of “No Name-Calling Week.”) T - Is it True? H - Is it Helpful? I - Is it Inspiring? N - Is it Necessary? K - Is it Kind? When I read this, the creative juices started flowing and I knew that this had to be a CouchPotatoRedux blog. I have to deal with this business of thinking before I speak, or thinking before I make a comment on Facebook. It is so easy to blurt out an insulting remark whether one thinks that it is an insult or not. I know that if we had stopped to think before we said some things, we would not have said them. If you don’t agree that this is true of you, consider yourself fortunate. But the advice from this acrostic can be helpful to you as well. It is important that what we say to or about others is unequivocally true.This is important for our Christian witness. Jesus never spoke anything but the truth, and when He said harsh words to people like the Pharisees what He told them was truth that they needed to hear. Doesn’t Christian love demand that we be truthful and tactful in what we say to and about people? Before you speak think about whether or not what you are about to say is true. It is important that what we say to others is helpful. For example, if you criticize someone, make sure that the criticism will be helpful to them. Sometimes we can say hurting things to people that are intended to put them down. I don’t think that it is ever helpful to intentionally say hurtful things to people. There might be someone that you really don’t like and you want to really put them down. Stop and think whether or not you will feel better about yourself if you say what is on your mind. Christian love demands that when we speak to or about other people that what we say is meant to be helpful and not hurtful. It is important that what we say to others is inspiring. I do not mean that we are to say inspiring things to manipulate people to do what we want them to do. We should intend to inspire them to be better people and do better things. Jesus certainly inspired people by what He said to them. Even if Jesus had to say negative things, what He said was inspiring and helped the people to whom He spoke. I sincerely hope that my preaching has inspired people to do better, even if what I said was negative. It is important that what we say to others is necessary. This might really be in reference to negative things that we might have to say to people. Sometimes when we get started we say more than is necessary. If we aren’t careful we can keep on until we say something that will sting and alienate the person. There have been times when I have spoken out in groups that I asked myself later if what I said was necessary. Jesus never said unnecessary things to people. It is important that what we say to others is kind. It is just as easy to say kind things as it is to say unkind things. A good policy might be to not say what we want to say if it is going to be unkind. A lot of families, churches, classes, etc. would be better off if people said kind things to each other. I know that I like for people to speak kindly to me, which means, of course, that I should speak kindly to them. Jesus was kind in what He said to people. Let’s try to be kind in what we say. It is not a matter of if we will speak to people, for we will speak to them. Let's just be careful to think before we speak. Make sure that the words you use are tasteful, for you might have to eat them later. :-) Bro. Joe |
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