Desperate Joy

  The Bible is truly the most amazing book on the planet.  One of the reasons the stories in the Bible have been so resilient throughout the ages is because they contain themes and ideas that touch on timeless truths that all of us feel and experience.  Nowhere in the Bible is this more apparent than in the first few chapters of Genesis. When Adam and Eve fell into sin, eating the forbidden fruit, something tragic, but interesting, happens.   They felt shame for the first time.   Genesis 3:7 says, "And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons."   For the first time they knew that they were naked.   A few verses back we read that they were naked and unashamed (2:25), now they were naked and ashamed.   Their eyes were opened, and they knew.   They knew something had gone wrong, that they had done something wrong.   Their innocence was lost. Crit...

   In the beginning, God scattered the galaxies into their places like jewels on the vast, velvet carpet of space.   He spoke and the world appeared like a glittering marble in His hand.   He pinched the dust and the deer, antelope and the rabbit sprang forth.   He danced across the ocean tide, and it rejoiced so greatly that the dolphin and whale sprang from the depths to join Him. He spread His palm across the mountainside and the great forests sprouted.   He looked upon the vast cerulean of the sky and it seemed empty, so He sketched the birds and the clouds to scamper and play across its canvas. All this please the Lord quite well, but then He thought something more.   Something different and quite special.   He scooped up a handful of earth, looked at the fair countenance of His dear Son and said, "Let's make something in Your image." With a gentle smile He replied, "No, in Our image." "Yes, that is good." "But, Fath...

  We have been looking at four stepping stones we can take if we want to find our way to joy.  The first two we looked at last time were surrender and sanctification, in this post I want to look at service and silence. When I was a child in Sunday school I was taught an acronym for joy: Jesus, Others, Yourself.   If I want to find joy, I was told, I needed to put Jesus first, others second and myself last.   It is a simple, but profound truth.   Life is not meant to be about my self-fulfillment, self-satisfaction, and self-actualization, at least not as ends in and of themselves.   Life is about serving Jesus and serving others.   While I am busy serving others I find the fulfillment, satisfaction, and actualization I desire. Jesus acted this out in dramatic fashion in John 13, "3. Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God. 4. He riseth from supper and laid aside his garmen...

  As human beings we have a problem.  We want things.  We desire pleasurable experiences.  We enjoy nice things.  These desire in themselves are not bad, in fact they are good. God wants us to flourish and have a pleasurable, joy-filled life.   He gave us the capacity for pleasure so that we would be drawn to Him, since He is the ultimate source of pleasure and joy.   "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning."   (James 1:17) The question is, how do find pleasure and satisfaction in the presence of God?   The lights and rush of this world are in our faces constantly, how can we cut through the noise and find the greater pleasure God is offering?   There are four things that I believe should be active in our lives if we want to be filled with the joy of the Lord:   surrender, sanctification, service, and silence.   ...

  In the Old Testament we find the fascinating story of the nation of Israel.  At the beginning of the book of Exodus they are enslaved in the nation of Egypt.  Through many signs and wonders the Lord delivers them and they walk free into the wilderness. Moses, their fearless leader (well maybe not fearless, but pretty close) was summoned by God to climb up Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments.   He was up there forty days or so, and during that time the people became frightened and confused.   They called out to Aaron, Moses' brother, to make them an idol.   So, as the story goes, Aaron crafted a golden calf, and they began to worship this idol instead of the one true God who had delivered them from Pharaoh and his armies. The nation of Israel had taken their eyes off of the Lord.   They determined that they could decide for themselves what was true and false, and what was right and wrong.   "We don't need God!   We have this idol...