As Christians, we should be the happiest people on the earth. I mean, we have the true joy of the Lord that is more than enough to sustain us from day to day. "The joy of the Lord is our strength" is the way the book of Nehemiah puts it. So why then do we let the little things of this world that are temporary and are of little importance get to us when the "joy of the Lord" should be our strength. As Christians, we need to make a commitment each and every day of our lives that we are not going to let the things of this world get to us or let the devil get us down. When the devil attacks us, we do not need to get all sad and "woe me, my life is so bad." Forget that mentality. As Christians, we should expect the devil to come at us because the Bible tells us he will in 1 Tim. 3:12. Really, we should praise God during those times because obviously the devil considers us a threat otherwise he would leave us alone. He already has the nonChristians, so the people he goes after are the Christians. But we serve a God that is greater than the devil is 24/7, 365 days a year. So lets take a look at a Scripture from Psalms and dive further into why we need to have the joy of the Lord as our strength and foundation.
Psalm 51:10-13 says, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners will be converted to You."
Those 4 verses are pretty powerful verses that each and every one of us should apply to our lives. But there is an order in those verses of the way things are done. First of all, we have to have a clean heart in our own lives. We have to be living a life of repentance so that our hearts and minds will be ready to hear from the Lord. The joy of the lord and the hope in His salvation for our lives also must dominate the way we think. When we think with that mentality, we will not let the little things of this world get to us so that they will not become a distraction. It is when these things dominate the way we think and form our mindset that verse 13 will take place. After the things we just talked about happen in our lives, verse 13 says, "THEN I will teach sinners Your ways, and sinners will be converted to You." We will not be able to let our joy in Christ overflow into other people's lives if we do not have it because of the problems that we will have in this world. We as Christians cannot afford to let the things of this world get to us because it could put people's souls at stake. How will we effectively share the Gospel with people if we are doing it with a down in the mouth attitude. We will fail because we are not trusting in God. But when we trust in God and let Him sustain us day to day, God will use us to convert sinners to His ways. God bless you!
I am new to your blog. I like it. The black background makes it very hard to read the writing, however.
ReplyDeleteThanks for using Psalm 51.
Hi Josh.....i stumbled on your blog and i'm glad i clicked.....i identify with 'Regaining Ground' and pray our Father in heaven to keep touching hearts with your posts........amen.
ReplyDeleteKeep up this fight of faith......we'll triumph!
Good post. I'm of the opinion that as well meaning Christians we often focus too much on the external, and not near enough on the eternal. It is about relationship. The church needs to lead and encourage it's folks to develop a oneness with Christ. I'm currently reading a new book entitled "Confessions of a Pray Slacker" that has strongly challenged me in this area of my life.
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