The Secret of Joy

What are you?  Are you allowing God to enable you to be a witness for Him (Acts 1:8), so that you can make disciples (Matthew 28:19)? Oswald Chambers says in The Method of Missions that “….you cannot make disciples unless you are a disciple yourself.” 

This is a powerful statement, yet it is simple.  The power of it can sometimes escape us if we have not truly evaluated to see if we are allowing ourselves to be discipled by the Lord Jesus.  So what does the word Disciple mean? Merriam-Webster defines it as: one who accepts and assists in spreading the doctrines of another: as a convinced adherent of a school or individual; a student or a pupil.  This means if you are a disciple of Jesus that you are learning about and from Jesus, and are convinced in the doctrine (teachings) of the bible.  Does that describe you?

Oswald goes on to say, “Don’t rejoice in successful service— the great secret of joy is that you have the right relationship with Me” (see Luke 10:17-20).  I want the secret of joy…don’t you?  I am a witness to Oswald’s statement, because I can feel the peace and joy of the Lord when I am walking in the Spirit in close relationship with God. Our right relationship comes through the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ.

So who is for Joy?  Let’s not just do church work, let’s not just do community service, let’s be in right relationship with God as His disciples serving Him with joy. 

The Danger of Deep Sleep!

Jonah 1⁵ All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship.

But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. (NIV)

When I read this I was immediately intrigued…I have been where Jonah is, as part of my process with God.  See we might look at Jonah and judge him.  We might look at the other sailors and say “why are they crying out to gods who can’t help?” All of these are valid perceptions, but we have to look with our spiritual eyes.  We don’t know Jonah’s story up to this point, we just know that God has told him to go and do something he REALLY does not want to do!  I have been there too.  We don’t know what Jonah’s has been through or where he is in his God process. He might be waiting on God to do something in His life.  He might be in a long season of wait, dealing with trials and tribulations.  I know that when I get spiritually weary, all I want to do is go to sleep and make it all go away.  I can imagine that is where Jonah was.  Make it go away.

I. Don’t. Want. To. Do. It. God.

At least the sailors were doing something.  They were at the crying out stage.  Jonah was just done.  When we are in that place we have to understand the danger of giving in to the deep sleep.  We can get stuck there.  It might look like depression.  We might wonder why we are so tired and can’t catch up on sleep.  Whatever the symptoms, the root cause is weariness in our spirit.  The only thing that will cure it is perseverance and obedience.

The Holy Spirit will empower us to move forward.  Get up.  Even if it is not pretty.  So I encourage you today if you are feeling that your trail has been too long, persevere and do whatever is next to do.  Even if you don’t think you have the strength, God will give you the strength if you wake up, get up and cry out to Him.  

It Has Been A While......

It has been way too long since I have posted, but I am still here! Big things are coming.  God is faithful if we wait on Him, we will see it.  I love the Lord so........