Rejoicing Always

(excerpted from Graham Cooke's October Newsletter)

Living in Christ makes us vulnerable to laughter. Laughter is more than a choice; it’s a requirement for us that we be happy. God’s highest plan for our lives includes a desire for us to find, live in, and love the joy that is in Christ. God is good news! His love and presence is an absolute tonic for us. “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full,” Jesus said in John 15:11.

Every time God speaks to us, or reveals more of His nature to us, joy is part of that equation. Beholding Him and becoming like Him is an invitation to party and celebrate with Him. Everything God says to us is designed to bring us into joy. Everything in the Kingdom of Heaven is about gladness, joy, happiness, and laughter. God wants to bring a smile to our faces.

God is joyful because He knows what’s coming next. He knows the final score. When you know the end from the beginning, you can’t help but laugh at all of evil’s schemes and tricks. They become irrelevant when you know that you win. There is a continuous joy in Christ that runs so deep that no one else can even touch it. But to access it, we need to learn how to rejoice in all things.

For me, joy is a safeguard. It’s a shield against the enemy. When the enemy comes, we can laugh in his face—because God laughs at him first.

I once had a dream where I was on a battlefield. We had just fought off the enemy, but we had lost a lot of good people. There weren’t many of us left; we were small and pitiful, to be honest. Every one of us was wounded. I myself had at least a dozen sword gashes on my arms. I was bleeding badly, and was absolutely exhausted.

Suddenly, a trumpet blew, and I saw another enemy army take the field in front of us. I looked around but saw no reinforcements for our battered side. The enemy was powering up. Their ranks were swelling with every passing moment. It was a hopeless fight, but our ragtag band of survivors gathered close together and got ready.

As I set my feet and gritted my teeth in preparation for the enemy’s charge, I noticed a man next to me was dressed as a restaurant waiter. Perfectly-pressed black trousers, a bowtie, a crisp, white shirt, and a white towel slung over his arm.

“What are you doing?” I asked incredulously.

“Would you like the melon or the soup?” he replied.

“What?” I asked.

“Melon or soup?” he said.

“How can you talk about food at a time like this?” I demanded.

The waiter ignored me and went from person to person, asking, “Melon or soup?”

“Are you mad?” I said. “Don’t you see what’s happening? Don’t you see the blood all over the ground? Don’t you see the enemy over there? How can you talk about lunch at a time like this?”

“Mmm-hmm,” he answered. “Melon or soup?”

I lost my temper completely. “Are you stupid or something?” I screamed. “You want to talk about food at a time like this?”

Suddenly, I woke up to find myself shouting, “Talk about food!” in my bedroom. In that instant, I received a powerful revelation, found in Psalm 23:5—“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.”

When we’re on the battlefield just trying to survive the next wave of the enemy, God is thinking about menus. He looks around and says, “What a great place for a picnic! We can have sausage rolls, meat pies, cheese sandwiches. This will be perfect.” He is so secure in who He is and in His power to defeat any enemy that He can feed us in the middle of the worst battle of our lives. And that confidence should be a source of pure joy in our lives.

Making cleanliness next to Godliness

As flu season sneaks up on us again, people seem more panicked than usual at additional threats from the H1N1 virus (aka ‘Swine Flu’).

“Cleanliness is next to Godliness” your mother or grandmother may have reminded you way back when. In this little reflection, we’ll see how to make it begin to come true!

Obviously among your best defenses against flu are good sanitary practices: washing hands frequently, sneezing into your sleeve, not re-using tissues, keeping fingers away from your face (especially eyes and mouth).

Another obvious help we receive free thanks to our government: flu shots. Get yours. You’re protecting yourself as well as all those you come in contact with.

Hand-sanitizers―now appearing in churches, hospitals, supermarkets, washrooms, wherevers—offer another small step not only in staying healthy ourselves, but also in helping us avoid a flu pandemic.

Here however is a new way to think/react each time you use one of those hand-sanitizers. Just as that disinfectant helps purify our hands and helps us stay healthy and considerate of others, so our ‘being the church’ should help us remain close to God, and, simultaneously, help us prevent an epidemic of wandering from God.

So pause for a second next time you're rubbing some of that stuff into your hands! While your hands are together, join them as if in prayer:

“That my hands may be the hands of Christ, bringing the healing touch of prayer, praise and perseverance into the world.” Selah.

[Idea originated in an article by the Rev. John Ohmer, rector of St. James’ Episcopal Church in Leesburg, Virginia & published in their Nov. 2/09 St. James’ Episcopal Church e-Pistle. Thanks to Lynne Johnston for passing it along.]

Healing choices: controlled by circumstances or character?

(adapted from a Rick Warren daily devotional)

When we say things such as, 'That makes me so mad . . . so sad . . . feel so bad,' we’re actually admitting that circumstances control the way we feel. Yet, we do have a choice. We have the ability to make healing choices. We can choose to remain positive; we can choose to not let some circumstance 'make' us mad.

The ability to control our reactions, to handle hurt without retaliating is called meekness. Jesus promised, "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth" (Matthew 5:5 NIV). Meek people control their reactions toward life, and this gives them far more control over a situation than if they simply react.

If you are a meek person, you are no longer a victim. You control your choices. The best definition of meekness in the Bible is Proverbs 16:32: "It is better to win control over yourself than over whole cities" (TEV).

During World War II, the noted psychiatrist Victor Frankl was a prisoner in the concentration camp at Auschwitz. He said, "They took my clothes, my wife, my kids, my wedding ring. I stood naked before the SS and I realized they can take everything in my life, but they cannot take my freedom to choose how I will respond to them."

That is a freedom you will always have. How do I react? How do I choose to react to those people who hurt me?

Jesus says we will be blessed when we show self-control. You might be thinking, 'That leaves me out! I can't control my reactions! I can't get them under control!' The secret of controlling your reaction is letting God's Spirit fill your life moment-by-moment. He'll break all those bad habits, all those patterns of reacting, all those old ways of being negative, defensive―reacting in fear, in anger, in sarcasm. He can break all those old patterns in your life and fill your life with power, love, and self-control (2 Timothy 1:7).

Some of us are stressed out by life, by circumstances, by relationships. What do we need more than anything else? We need to develop the quality of meekness; the quality of controlling our reactions by the Spirit God has placed in us.

What God seeks

More than anything, God seeks our love.

God's great commandment is that we love Him, ultimately, with all our mind, heart, soul and strength. As we do, we fulfill all He requires of us (see John 14:15). And it is as we love Him that He orchestrates all things to work together for our good (see Rom. 8:28).

Beloved, loving God is not hard. We can fulfill any assignment – auto mechanic or housewife, doctor or college student – and still give great pleasure to our heavenly Father. We do not need ministry titles to love the Lord. Indeed, God measures the value of our lives by the depth of our love. This is what He requires of every true God seeker: to love Him where we're at.

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Excerpted & adapted from Francis Frangipane's newest book on seeking God (currently untitled), due out in November.

God’s Goodness will pursue you!

“Surely your goodness . . . will pursue me all the days of my life”
King David in Psalm 23:6 (NLT)

Even in the middle of your hurts, habits, and hang-up, God is watching over you. King David is not saying, "Surely only good things are going to happen to me!" He knew as well as anyone that bad things happen to good people.

David’s point is only that God’s goodness will follow after or pursue him. No matter how bad, evil, or difficult something seems, God will work it out for good.

It’s one of God’s great promises that He has given to believers: We know all that happens to us is working for our good—if we love God and are fitting into his plans (Romans 8:28). If you're a believer, the Bible says all things are working together for good—not that all things are good—but working together for good.

There is no difficulty, dilemma, defeat, or disaster in the life of a believer that God can’t ultimately turn toward His purpose

(Adapted from a Rick Warren devotional)