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Joy is a product of abundance; it is the overflow of vitality.
We cannot make ourselves joyful. Joy cannot be commanded, purchased or arranged.
Joy has a history. Joy is the verified, repeated experience of those involved in what God is doing.
One of the most interesting and remarkable things Christians learn is that laughter does not exclude weeping.
A common but futile strategy for achieving joy is trying to eliminate things that hurt:
get rid of pain by numbing the nerve ends, get rid of insecurity by eliminating risks, get rid of disappointment by depersonalizing your relationships.
And then try to lighten the boredom of such a life by buying joy in the form of vacations and entertainment. There i...
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The joy that develops in the Christian way of discipleship is an overflow of spirits that comes from feeling good not about yourself but about God. We find that his ways are dependable, his promises sure.
The first great fact which emerges from our civilization is that today everything has become “means.” There is no longer an “end”; we do not know whither we are going. We have forgotten our collective ends, and we possess great means: we set huge machines in motion in order to arrive nowhere.
For it is the nature of sin to take good things and twist them, ever so slightly, so that they miss the target to which they were aimed, the target of God.
We care more for our possessions with which we hope to make our way in the world than with our thoughts and dreams which tell us who we are in the world.
We participated in an act of love that was provided for us in the structure of God’s creation.
The character of our work is shaped not by accomplishments or possessions but in the birth of relationships:
What does make a difference is the personal relationships that we create and develop.
Out of numerous handshakes and greetings, some germinate and grow into a friendship in Christ.
Oh, how he blesses the one who fears GOD! Enjoy the good life in Jerusalem every day of your life. And enjoy your grandchildren. Peace to Israel!
The easiest thing in the world is to be a Christian. What is hard is to be a sinner.
Being a Christian is what we were created for. The life of faith has the support of an entire creation and the resources of a magnificent redemption. The structure of this world was created by God so we can live in it easily and happily as his children.
Jesus, in his introduction to his Sermon on the Mount, identifies the eight key qualities in the life of a person of faith and announces each one with the word blessed.
Rather, he will expand our capacities and fill us up with life so that we overflow with joy. The
The experts on the world hunger problem say that there is enough to go around right now.
But we have a greed problem: if I don’t grab mine while I can, I might not be happy.
The hunger problem is not going to be solved by government or by industry but in church, among Christians who learn a different way to pursue happiness.
But the difficulties are not inherent in the faith: they come from the outside in the form of temptations, seductions, pressures.
“Fear GOD.” Reverence might be a better word. Awe. The Bible isn’t interested in whether we believe in God or not. It assumes that everyone more or less does. What it is interested in is the response we have to him: Will we let God be as he is, majestic and holy, vast and wondrous, or will we always be trying to whittle him down to the size of our small minds, insist on confining him within the boundaries we are comfortable with, refuse to think of him other than in images that are convenient to our lifestyle? But then we are not dealing with the God of creation and the Christ of the cross,
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chumminess with the Almighty, the Bible talks of the fear of the Lord—not to scare us but to bring us to awesome attention before the overwhelming grandeur of God, to shut up our whining and chattering and stop our running and fidgeting so that we can really see him as he is and listen to him as he speaks his merciful, life-changing words of forgiveness.
But religion is an inconvenience only to those who are traveling against the grain of creation, at cross-purposes with the way that leads to redemption.
Patience is drawing on underlying forces; it is powerfully positive, though to a natural view it looks like just sitting it out. How would I persist against positive eroding forces
And patience has a positive tonic effect on others;
stick-to-itiveness.
perseverance.
And we know the result: an incomprehensible kindness (“Father, forgive them”), an unprecedented serenity (“Father, into your hands I commit my spirit”) and—resurrection.
(2 Cor 11:23-29 Phillips)
Charles Williams once described as the “passion of patience.” We are in a similar apprenticeship. But we will not learn it by swallowing our sense of outrage on the one hand or, on the other, excusing all wickedness as a neurosis. We will do it by offering up our anger to God, who trains us in creative love.
