John 15:11: “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.” Galatians 5:22: “But the fruit of Spirit is…joy.”
Jesus promised us His joy in John 15:11 and Paul reminds us that the Holy Spirit makes Jesus’ joy active in our lives. How does this joy take shape in our lives? First, it is the gift salvation. We cannot know the joy of Jesus until He is alive in our hearts. We can experience earthly joy and happiness in the right circumstances, but the deeply rooted joy of Jesus, in all circumstances, comes into our lives through salvation. Salvation is the result of repenting of sin, confessing them to Jesus and inviting Him into our lives. If you have Jesus in your life, you have His joy because you have His promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit. You can claim that joy now by just turning from sin through confession and repentance and inviting Jesus into your life. Second is the gift of worship. It is through worship that we express the joy that we have in Jesus. Some people express their joy in quietness and stillness. This is how I express my joy. Some people express their joy in..well..loud praise. There is no right or wrong way to share your joy through worship and thankfulness for His salvation and for the gift of His Holy Spirit. Don’t let anyone tell you that the way you express your joy in Jesus is the wrong way, just do it the way you feel it. You can worship Him alone as well in public worship. Third is the gift of service. Our joy in Jesus is complete when we take the joy of our salvation, and joy of our worship into service for Jesus in whatever way He leads. We all have our gifts for service, and we need to use them in service. The word that is translated as “worship” can also be translated as “service.” There is a sign that you have probably read in many church bulletins: “Enter to Worship-Depart to Serve.” There is great joy in Christian service, whether it is visiting and ministering to someone who is ill, or witnessing to someone about their need for salvation. There is so much more that could be written about this gift of joy. I think that the three gifts here can apply to any life. Do you have this kind of joy in your life? Bro. Joe
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“The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with me.”
In Leviticus 25 the Lord established what was called a “year of Jubilee.” Every fifty years the land sold by the Israelites was to be return to their particular tribe. In other words, when land was sold, it was sold based on how many years it was sold before Jubilee. This is strange to us, because when we buy land we expect to keep it until we sell it or until we die. I discovered at least two reasons for the importance of the Jubilee, and what it was to teach the Israelites and us. The first discovery I made was that the Jubilee would teach the Israelites, and us, that all that we have really belongs to the Lord. This is actually the first order for what we call stewardship. Everything that we have belongs to God. We put a high priority on the ownership of things. We have a philosophy of “what is mine is mine.” To a certain extent this is true, because if someone takes what is ours without our permission it is called stealing. But in our hearts and minds, we are to understand that what we have ultimately belongs to God. If we realize this we will not be selfish with what is ours. Furthermore, if we realize that what we have belongs to God, we will want what we have to be used for His glory and for His kingdom’s work. For example, we have a bank account that has our names on it. It is ours and no one has a right to it except us. But if we realize that what we have in that bank account ultimately belongs to God, we won’t mind sharing at least a tenth of it for His kingdom’s work. It is also true that if we know that God owns that bank account, we will not be selfish with helping those less fortunate than ourselves. That’s why God also established the law of gleaning in the Old Testament. Israelites were to leave part of the crop in the field in order for the poor to have some means of sustenance. There is a parable in Luke 12 about a farmer who had a bumper crop one year. Here is how he handled the situation: “And he said, This will I do; I will pull down my barns, and build greater, and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul thou has much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat drink and be merry.” (Luke 12:18-19) He was condemned because his good fortune was only to benefit himself. He completely disregarded the law of gleaning. In the ensuing verse he was told that he would die, and “then whose will these things be, which thou hast provided?” He forgot one of the greatest teachings of Jubilee, i.e., what we have ultimately belongs to God and is to be used not just for ourselves, but to be used as God sees fit. The second discovery that I made from Jubilee, and from the law of letting the land rest every seventh year, was that it would teach the Israelites and us to trust our welfare to God. The problem for the Isralites was: “If we let the land lie fallow, this will mean that we will not have crops for three years.” God’s answer to them was: “I will be a blessing for you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years….you will be eating this until the ninth year when the harvest comes in.” Jesus said something similar to us: “Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? Or, what shall we drink? Or, wherewithal shall we be clothed? ……..For your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things will be added to you.” (Matthew 6:31-33) We have the promise of provision straight from the lips of Jesus. I pray that you will benefit today from the two lessons that I learned in my reading in Leviticus. There are many more lessons in Leviticus 25, but these are the two that stood out today. Believe that they are true for you as well. Be blessed! Bro. Joe “But this I say, he which sows sparingly shall reap also sparingly: and he who sows bountifully shall also reap bountifully. 7. Every man as he purposes in his heart, so let him give, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver. 8. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you: that you in all things, may abound to every good work.”
I know that giving is not one of the favorite topics to write about, but it is an important aspect of Christian living. In 2 Corinthians 9 Paul reminded the Corinthians of their promise to send a love offering to the famine-stricken Jerusalem Church. In this challenge Paul gave them, and us, an excellent profile of Christian giving. The motivation for Christian giving Verse 6:“But this I say, he which sows sparingly shall reap also sparingly: and he who sows bountifully shall also reap bountifully.” Paul used an agricultural analogy. If a farmer sows few seeds, he gets a small crop. If he sows a large amount of seeds, he gets a large crop. This obvious illustration makes sense for givers as well as for farmers. It is a simple analogy, but when it comes to getting Christians to be generous givers it becomes a little complicated. One motivation for giving is that the more we give the more we receive. This was not a new concept. Malachi 3:10 stated the same principle. In this verse, God challenged Israel to tithe and see, “If I will not open to you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” It is really true that we cannot out give God. When we give generously, our hearts are open to receive the bountiful blessings of God. These blessings can be spiritual as well as physical. Furthermore, the amount of the gift is determined by the ability of the giver to give. (Read about the“widow’s mite” in Mark 12:42-44.) The attitude of Christian giving Verse 7: “Every man as he purposes in his heart, so let him give, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver.” The Corinthians were to give cheerfully, knowing that their gifts would meet a lot of needs in Jerusalem. When we give, we should not consider what we have lost, but that we have made an investment in God’s work. This knowledge should make giving a pleasure, not a mere duty – “of necessity.” We are to do it for Jesus in order to fulfill His purposes in our community and in the world. “For God loves a cheerful giver.” Let me reword this: “God loves it when we give cheerfully.” I don’t think that this changes the meaning. God does not stop loving us if we do not give cheerfully, but He really loves it when we do. The grace of Christian giving Verse 8: "And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that you always having all sufficiency in all things may abound to every good work." The grace of God is included in everything that we do, and that includes giving. In His grace, God has given us everything that we need in order to share Him with others. The nature of grace is to give. This is true of God’s grace towards us and it should be true of His grace at work in us. In a real sense, how we give determines how we live. In God’ abounding grace, we can “abound to every good work.” As we give, so will we live; therefore, we should abundantly give so that we can live abundantly. A cheerful giver is probably a cheerful person. A generous giver is a generous person. Bro. Joe “And (Jesus) said unto (Andrew and Peter), follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
This is Jesus call to His first disciples, Andrew and Peter. According to John’s gospel, Andrew had been a disciple of John the Baptist, and when John the Baptist showed Jesus to him, he followed Jesus and went and found his brother Peter, who also became a follower. This was their formal call to “become fishers of men.” They didn’t realize it at the time, but Jesus was calling them to a lifetime opportunity to serve Him. He still gives the opportunity to people today. When we accept His call to become Christians, we accept the opportunity to serve Jesus and to “fish for men.” We need to see it as the opportunity that it is, and actually follow Jesus and invite people to Jesus – which is what “fishing for men” is. It is a tremendous opportunity because it is a call to follow Jesus. We are all going to follow something or someone. Some people follow their own inclinations and follow only what, or who, they want to follow. For example, some people seem to substitute sports for Jesus. Of course, there is nothing wrong with enjoying sports and pulling for your team, but when it consumes your life it has gone too far. I certainly have my “druthers” when it comes to ball teams, and I really want them to win, but my whole life doesn’t depend on it. Jesus is “the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” This means that it was decided back beyond eternity that Jesus would come, live a perfect life, die on the cross for our sins, rise from the dead, ascend to the Father, intercede for us and come again to receive us. It is not just an opportunity to follow Jesus; it is an honor to follow Him and serve Him. He wants you to follow Him. If you aren’t already following Him, surrender to Him now. It is a tremendous opportunity because of His involvement in our lives. Notice that Jesus said, “I will make you fishers of men.” This means that when we make the decision to follow Jesus, He becomes involved intimately in our lives. It’s not just an invitation to follow Jesus on our own. Part of His “making” us fishers of men is sending the Holy Spirit to live in our lives to empower us for witness and to guide us into truth. Becoming a follower of Jesus is not a shallow thing. Being “fishers of men” is not a shallow thing. Jesus wants to use us to do His work on this earth, just as He did for Andrew and Peter. You can follow Peter’s life after he became a follower of Jesus, and see that Jesus, and serving Him, took over his life. Following Jesus is a tremendous opportunity because it is a call to become involved in the lives of other people. When we fish for people, we do not do it without having to become involved in their lives. Just as Jesus does not call us to follow Him and then dump us, we do not lead people to Jesus and forget about them. We invite them into fellowship with us and the fellowship of our church, where we will be involved in their lives as they grow in discipleship. Have you accepted Jesus call to follow Him and become a “fisher of men”? Bro. Joe "And whatever my eyes desired I kept not from them. I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labor: and this was my portion of all my labor. 11. Then I looked on all the works of my hands, and on my labor that I had labored to do: and, behold all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.”
You have probably thought that it would be great if you could have everything that you wanted. I will confess that I have thought about how nice it would be to have the money to buy everything that my heart desires. This has never happened and I am resigned to the reality that it will never happen. King Solomon wrote that he had everything that his eyes desired, he did not withhold anything that he thought would bring him joy, and his labors were to that end. A happy man – huh? Nope. Here is what he found: “Everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind, nothing was gained under the sun.” (NIV) What can we learn from this? First, Solomon found that when he got all that he desired, he found it to be vain. Vain, or vanity, means empty and void. Solomon thought that all of the things that he desired would bring joy and satisfaction to his life. He found when he acquired all that he wanted it was not true. Things that we possess cannot fill the empty places in our lives. It is tragic that people dream of the fullness that riches would bring into their lives, only to find that it is not true. If all one has is wealth, he or she is not going to find little real, deep satisfaction in it. Money and “things” cannot bring real satisfaction to human hearts. Second, Solomon found that when he got all that he desired, it caused “vexation of spirit.” What that means is when he did not find all of the satisfaction his desire for possessions, he was depressed. In other words, after Solomon had all that his heart desired, he was disappointed, because those things did not fill the void. I remember that when I was a child I would peruse the Sears Christmas Catalog and think of how great it would be to have all of those toys and things that I saw. My parents being my parents, that would never have happened, but I did dream about it. I also remember that when I was a child and got what I wanted after a few days the luster had worn off, and I found myself wanting something else – some other toy. Third, Solomon found that when he got all that he desired, it did not profit him at all. There is a saying that the man who has the most “toys” when he dies wins. This is a real joke. Jesus gave a parable about a rich man and a poor beggar named Lazarus. The rich man “fared sumptuously every day.” He obviously had all of the world’s pleasures and was supposed to be very happy. Lazarus on the other hand did not have possessions, but he had a relationship with the Lord. When they both died, the man who had the most “toys” was not the winner. The man who had none of the “toys” was the ultimate winner, because he filled the void of his life with the Lord. (You can find the parable in Luke 16:19-31. I suggest that you read it.) Relax, you’ll never get all you want, but you can find peace and satisfaction in Jesus. Bro. Joe “Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and to exhort (encourage) you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.”
Jude intended to write about “our common salvation,” but the circumstances demanded that he write about contending for the faith. I think that we live in a time like this as well, but I don’t want us to necessarily read that as a call to fight. There are many things that make me angry today, but anger will not make me a good witness. We need to fight, but we need to remember that the weapons that we use in this warfare are spiritual. I want to give you my opinion of how we can contend for the faith today. I will begin with one thing that we should not do in order to contend for the faith. We do not need to argue with people about the faith. I don’t mean that we do not need to speak up for the faith. What I mean is that when our witness, or discussion, turns into an argument all it does is raise our blood pressure and it does not contend for the faith. I have never argued anyone into the kingdom of God. Let’s move to what we can do to contend for the faith. The first answer is simple: We can live what we preach. There is no advertisement for the Christian faith like a person really living for Jesus. This means that our moral lives are upright and beyond question. This certainly doesn’t mean that we will be perfect, but it does mean that we will watch our behavior, privately and publicly. I know that a lot of people are turned off by church because they see church people living like the rest of the world. Early Christians turned the world upside down because they lived authentic Christian lives. We contend for the faith when we obey Jesus’ admonition that we love one another. In John 13:35, Jesus said: “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another.” This means that Christians are to love each other, but beyond that, it means that we are to love people in general. Now, I know that this is not an easy command to follow. There are some people in the church, out of the church as well as people who are opposed to the church, who are not easy to love. We have personality conflicts. We have differences of opinions. We have doctrinal differences. We have moral differences. We are to help people live better lives, and we will be more effective in that endeavor if we love them. I love the saying: “People won’t care how much we know until they know how much we care.” If we want to contend for the faith, we need to stand up for the faith. This doesn’t mean that we should tear into people, foaming at the mouth, condemning them. We cannot, however, contend for the faith if we are ashamed of Jesus or ashamed of what we believe. Paul admonished us in Ephesians 4:15 to “speak the truth in love.” We need to speak the truth, and we need to do it in love – but we do need to speak the truth. If we say what we say out of love and concern and by the leadership of the Holy Spirit, we don’t need to worry about what the other person thinks, for we have done what we have been commanded to do. This post is by no means comprehensive on the subject, but I think that it gives some sound advice on contending for the faith. Bro. Joe “Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful.”
A “steward” is one who has been entrusted with something and is responsible for how he or she uses it. I was impressed this morning when I read the devotional from David Jeremiah’s devotional book Discovery. He wrote: “All human beings were created to be stewards of the gifts of God: life, breath, talents, resources, relationships, the creation in which we live, and others (Genesis 1:28). Christians have been made stewards of even more: the grace of God, spiritual gifts, the Gospel, and others.” I was impressed with the scope of stewardship that Dr. Jeremiah mentioned. God made all human beings stewards of the earth. That is why, for example, farmers are careful about what they plant and where they plant. One crop will take the nutrients out of the soil, so they do not plant that crop in the same place all of the time. We are often reminded of our stewardship of the air that we breathe. I am not a hyper-environmentalist, but I do understand that we need to be careful what we put into the air that God gave us for the good of all. God gave us the earth “to dress and keep,” so we are responsible for how we use its resources. When we misuse those God-given resources we pay the price of unclean air and ruined soil. So, in a sense, we are all stewards of what God has given us. Dr. Jeremiah pointed out, however, that Christians have additional stewardship responsibilities. The Bible points out the importance of the stewardship of God’s people, beginning with Adam and on through the whole Bible. In Genesis 12, God called Abraham and made him the father of the Jewish people. The descendants of Abraham were given the special stewardship of serving Yahweh. The Old Testament is filled with stories of how they failed in that stewardship and paid the price for it. Just as our soil and air can be ruined, so can our witness to the world through poor stewardship. We usually think of Christian stewardship from the standpoint of giving money, and that is an integral part of our stewardship. But we are given other stewardship responsibilities as well. There is the business of gifts of the Holy Spirit that each Christian has been given. The idea was/is that the work of God would be carried out by people using their gifts to serve God. There are gifts like leadership, encouragement and teaching, to name just a few. God’s work goes on by our stewardship of these gifts. The sad fact is that because we do not discover and use our gifts, quite often the work goes lacking. If God has given someone the gift of teaching, for example, then he or she should study and prepare themselves to teach as God ordered. The problem is that people with the gift of teaching will sometimes not use that gift for one reason or another. This can lead to “soul erosion.” I hope that you get the point that we are all stewards of what God has given us, and Christians are stewards of what God has given us to serve Him. Let’s conclude this article by taking a look at ourselves. Take a good look at your stewardship. Are you doing what God has gifted you to do? This stewardship is primarily for the work of the church, but the work of the church is to impact the world. If you determine that you are not a good steward of God’s gifts to you, then you need to get busy discovering what they are and begin to use them in your church and community. After all, Paul wrote to the church at Corinth:“Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful.” Are you faithful in your stewardship? Really think about it. Bro. Joe “This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118:24
“Again, He limits a certain day, saying in David, Today, after so long a time, as it is said, today if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” Hebrews 4:7 Have you ever wished that you lived in another time or another place? I guess we have all wished this at some time or other, but it is a useless exercise. We are living in a certain time at a certain place, and the way I see it, we are living in this time and place because that is what God wants of us. I have often said that I would go back to simpler times if I could take air-conditioning and medical science with me. I think you get my point. If we could live in another time and another place, we would still have to face the hardships of each day. I think that the Bible teaches us that we need to live today, because we can’t relive yesterday and we can’t live tomorrow until it gets here. That’s right, that only leaves today. We should live each day to the fullest, giving our time to the Lord, and following His will for our lives. I want to point out some things about living life to the fullest today. What we do with each day will determine what will take place in the future. I remember that when I was in high school, I decided that studying was a waste of time, and that homework was just a nuisance, so I gave them up. Each day passed, and life just kept going on. It took awhile, but I finally decided that I had better make better use of my days. Suppose I had not wised up and had kept on like I was going. The days would have kept passing and I would have gotten sorrier and sorrier. (Some of you are probably thinking that I couldn’t be any sorrier – shame on you. lol) How we use the time that we have each day will determine the quality of our lives as we live from day to day. It is important that we embrace each day. The psalmist gave us some wise advice: “This is the day that the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” It is worth noting that he did not write: “We should rejoice and be glad in it,” but he wrote “we will rejoice and be glad in it.” The NIV translates it: “Let us rejoice and be glad in it. ”Either way it is a positive statement about living each day that God has given us and rejoicing in Him and in the fact that He has given us another day. You can rejoice in the day or bemoan the day, but it is all you have at the moment. We can meet each new day with rejoicing, or we can bemoan each new day, and it will still be all thhat we have at the moment. Too many people are putting off today what they plan to do tomorrow. We need to take advantage of the fact that we are alive today, and that we can live it in a positive way. I have heard it said many times that we can greet the day with “good morning Lord,” or with “good Lord, it's morning.” Which do you think will give you a better day? It is today that we can take care of the things that we know need to be taken care of. One of these has to do with our spiritual lives. We can start off the day with prayer and reading God’s word. We know that if we want to draw closer to the Lord, we need to communicate with Him, and that we need to delve into His word. Today is a good day to start your day, as best you can with the time that you have, in fellowship with God and His word. I have found that the exercise of prayer and Bible reading has helped me “rejoice in the day that the Lord has made.” Today is the day to get right with the Lord. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 6:2b: “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”In the spirit of that text, we can say that today is the accepted time to draw near to the Lord. You have today! What are you going to do with it? There are choices before you as you face today. You can spend some time praising God and thanking Him that you have today. You will be surprised at how much difference that will make in the rest of your day. Try it! Bro. Joe “And as He walked by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea: for they were fishermen. 17. And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
I want you to think about the possibility of Jesus using you to be a part of carrying out His purposes in the coming year. It is possible that you feel that you didn’t do a very good job of that in 2019. I guess that’s about par for the course for a lot of us, because it is difficult to determine when we have adequately served the Lord. If you are like a lot of people, and I mean A LOT OF THEM, you question whether God can use you at all. This is where Peter and Andrew come in, as well as James and John who were called to be used by the Savior right after Peter and Andrew. These men prove to us that Jesus can and will use us. The four men that Jesus called that day were not out of the ordinary. In fact, they were very ordinary – they were fishermen. There was nothing wrong with that profession. It was just not one that qualified people in the eyes of people that day to do anything remarkable. That should be an encouragement to us, for most of us are ordinary. (I remember that Abraham Lincoln said: “God must really love common people, because He made so many of us.”) Take Billy Graham for example. He was just a raw bone North Carolina farm boy. Who would have thought when they saw him at school, church and at work, that God would use Billy Graham to be the evangelist to the world? (No one was more incredulous than Billy Graham himself.) I am not putting myself in the league with Billy Graham, but who would have thought that God would use me to touch people’s lives with the gospel? My cousin Johnny and I were nicknamed “worry warts” at the Smithville Baptist Church. God started calling me when I was about twelve years old to preach His word, but I had a lot foolishness to overcome before I finally surrendered at age 21. If Jesus could use Peter, Andrew, James, John, Billy Graham and me, He can use you as well for whatever purpose(s) He has for your life. Notice that Jesus called them to be “fishers of men.” What Jesus meant by that was that they were to tell others about Him. While He called them from their fishing boats to follow Him and evangelize the world, that is not what He demands of everyone. There have been millions of people who have become “fishers of men” and stayed at whatever location or task that they were doing before. It is important that we realize that Jesus is using people who work at ordinary jobs to reach other people for Him. First of all, Jesus wants us to live lives before people that will reflect Him. Second, He wants us to give a verbal witness to people that we encounter when He leads us to do so. He wants to use us right where we are, doing what we do every day to reach people for Him. As you start this New Year, resolve that you are going to make yourself available to the Lord to be used of Him in whatever way He wants to use you. He wants to use you at your church, but He also wants to use you in the community where you live. I don’t know what He wants to use you to do, but there are plenty of opportunities to be used of Him as you encounter people daily. He wants to use you in the mundane things of life. For example, when you encounter a cashier and he or she makes a mistake, He wants to use you to show them how Christians are supposed to act. He wants to use you at work around the people with whom you work every day. People should be able to tell by your actions that Jesus is making a difference in your life. Of course there are also things that He can use you for at your church, just be available to Him to use you as He sees fit. Just remember this – God can use you!!!!! Bro. Joe “We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. 2. Let every one of us please his (or her) for his (or her) good to edification. 3. For even Christ pleased not Himself; but as it is written, “The reproaches of them that reproached you fell on me.”
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