Are you enduring or enjoying your life?

Are you enduring or enjoying your life?

SNACK

It is difficult to tell the difference between Christians and non-believers from their countenance. Christians in the main appear to have lost their joy.

Can a Christian lose his or her joy?

My honest response, is “how many of us as Christians are experiencing true joy in our lives”? It appears to me that the issue is really why is it that so many of us as Christians seem to be enduring rather than enjoying our lives.

Joy is the second manifestation of the fruit of the Spirit that is listed in Gal 5:22.

Is the Christian to ENDURE or ENJOY life?

We get an answer from James 1: 2 - 4

2Consider it pure joy, my brothers, .........

I Thess 5: 16 Be joyful always..........

2 Cor 12: 10 That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

The Christian life is not without hardship. It is also definitely not without JOY!

How can a Christian restore the Joy of the Lord in his or her life?

I want to suggest a 5–step formula:

STEP 1: SELF

Re-visit how you see yourself. Enjoy is incompatible with low self-esteem; self-hate or compounded frustration.

Tips for improving your self esteem include:

a. Watching your self talk
b. Not comparing self to others
c. Using valid and reliable yardsticks
d. Being realistic

STEP 2: ADJUST YOUR PROCESSING FILTERS

We tend to put all events and developments into categories. These categories can usually be classified into positive, negative and neutral.

How we process events has a major impact on our level of joy.

STEP 3: BE FULLY AWARE THAT THE CHOICES WE MAKE TODAY AND MADE YESTERDAY WILL INFLUENCE HOW MUCH JOY WE EXPERIENCE TOMORROW AND 20 YEARS FROM NOW.

STEP 4: REVIEW YOUR OUTLOOK ON THE ISSUES OF PROSPERITY AND SCARCITY.
REFLECT MORE CAREFULLY ON THE BLESSINGS OF HAVING THE JOY OF THE LORD AS OUR STRENGTH

STEP 5: LOOK BEYOND THIS LIFE

The 5th step in the process of ensuring that ENJOY is not left out as we ENDURE is the need to look beyond this life:
1 Cor 15:19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

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MEAL

Are you enduring or enjoying your life?


A. Can a Christian lose his or her joy?

A brother once said to me that he has never read where Jesus laughed. This observation seems to underline the outlook of devout Christians. I think it is fair to say that the overwhelming image of the Christian is of someone with a serious countenance who looks as if they have just come out of great torment.

How many of us can truly say that we and the brethren with which we fellowship are true bundles of joy?

In another discussion, the point was being made that joy was a fruit of the Spirit and therefore was gift from God. Consequently, because it is a gift, we have relatively little influence in how joy plays out in our lives.

We can tinker at happiness, it appears but joy really is outside of our sphere of influence.

The question has been put to me: Can a Christian lose his or her joy?

My honest response, is “how many of us as Christians are experiencing true joy in our lives”? It appears to me that the issue is really why is it that so many of us as Christians seem to be enduring rather than enjoying our lives.

Can we examine ourselves this afternoon and truly say under the watchful eyes of the God who hears our daily prayers and watches each and every emotion: Joy, joy my heart is full of joy?

It appears that we have forgotten that joy is the second manifestation of the fruit of the Spirit that is listed in Gal 5:22. At St. Andrew we have spent over a year preaching, studying and practicing the development of love in our lives and in the congregation ….with marked results.

[Gal 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.]

I wonder how many of us – as congregations - would consider making that investment in focusing on joy. How many sermons have you heard in the past year that address something that is supposed to be manifested in our lives as Christians who have the fruit of the Spirit?

Is the Christian to ENDURE or ENJOY life?

We get an answer from James 1: 2 - 4

2Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

I Thess 5: 16 Be joyful always; 17pray continually; 18give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

Paul gives us further insight in 2 Cor 12:

7To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

The Christian life is not without hardship. It is also definitely not without JOY!

Can a Christian lose his or her joy? We need only to look inside ourselves and around us for the answer.

Are you enduring or enjoying your life? That is question that I put before you this afternoon.

Even as we reflect on our own lives and try to come to some conclusion, I am going to assume that some of us have less JOY in the mix than is desirable.

I am guessing that in some of our lives ENDURE has got the upper hand on ENJOY.

B. How can a Christian restore the Joy of the Lord in his or her life?

I want to suggest a 5–step formula for tipping the balance back in favour of ENJOY.

STEP 1: SELF

Re-visit how you see yourself.

Enjoy is incompatible with low self-esteem; self-hate or compounded frustration.

I state without fear of contradiction that the greater the level of discomfort with yourself the lower the chances of experiencing JOY in your life.

If you listen to your “self talk” you can establish the level of JOY that you are experiencing and that you are likely to experience.

The less you love yourself and the worse you feel about life the lower will be the fount of JOY in your life. Conversely, the more comfortable you are with who you are and the more fulfilled you feel about who you are the greater the prospects of experiencing unbridled JOY.

So, what am I saying? I am saying that whether you experience joy or not starts with you and how you think about yourself.

I am saying that JOY is not totally dependent on others and what happens outside of you. Joy is yours to grasp. You too can ENJOY life…but it starts with coming to grips with yourself. It starts with understanding who you are and respecting yourself.

This does not mean that there are not things to be fixed and adjusted. But, you can only experience JOY when you learn to love yourself – blemishes, warts and all.

Tips for improving your self esteem include:

a. Watching your self talk
b. Not comparing self to others
c. Using valid and reliable yardsticks
d. Being realistic

STEP 2: ADJUST YOUR PROCESSING FILTERS

We tend to put all events and developments into categories. These categories can usually be classified into positive, negative and neutral.

Our orientation to life and our mood tend to determine how we classify events.

How we process events has a major impact on our level of joy. The fact of stress and its management has a great deal of influence on the level of JOY in our lives.

Stress

• Stress is an integral part of our lives
• Some stress is inevitable.
• Stress can impel us to heightened performance and can be healthy and positive in that context.
• Managing the stressors in our lives to extract the positive effects and minimize the negative effects will make it easier for us to experience joy.
• Stress is neither good nor bad.
• It is merely the body’s reaction to the demands of life.
• “Stressors” are external events that cause an emotional &/or physical reaction.
• How any event affects us is a function of how we view the event - positive, negative, or neutral.
• The boss summons you – how do you view that event?
• A negative stressor for you may have positive impact on me. ----- firing for you….raise of pay for me.

Satisfaction
• Satisfaction is on the opposite side of the see-saw with stress.
• Satisfaction plays a central role in our physical and mental health and in enhancing our productivity.
• Sustaining high levels of satisfaction is as important as reducing negative stress.


Stressor management
• Identify your stressors and satisfiers
• Try to reduce or eliminate stressors and increase the impact of satisfiers
• Change your response to events

STEP 3: BE FULLY AWARE THAT THE CHOICES WE MAKE TODAY AND MADE YESTERDAY WILL INFLUENCE HOW MUCH JOY WE EXPERIENCE TOMORROW AND 20 YEARS FROM NOW

We decide that we want to go to Ocho Rios. Our reason for going is not to do the will of God. We hear on the news that Flat Bridge is flooded out.

News flash, news flash: This is the way of escape that God has promised us!

We are determined to go, so we decide to go through Sligoville.

Monday morning: “You want see the whole a mi front end lick out and mi lucky to be alive. A rock roll down pon mi and mi swerve into a crater and mass up mi car. J$30,000 worth a parts alone! I can’t even find my rent money much less.”

There are consequences to the choices that we make and they definitely influence the level of joy that we experience. Some of the discomfort and unhappiness that we feel today are as a direct result of choices that we made in the past.

We have to come to grips with that reality if we are to expect that joy will abound in our lives in the future.

The young man or woman who gives in to a moment of weakness the produces an unplanned pregnancy has a lifetime to face the consequences.

If we are to enjoy rather than endure our lives, we need to make wise choices.

2 Peter 1: 3 – 11 Making One’s Calling and Election Sure
3 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.
10 Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, 11 and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Joy is a fruit of the Spirit and a gift from God. Salvation is also a gift from God but many fail to claim it. Our life style and the choices that we make can dampen the effect of the Spirit in our lives.

To let joy abound in our lives in the future, we need to do those things that Peter promises will ensure that we will never fall.

STEP 4: REVIEW YOUR OUTLOOK ON THE ISSUES OF PROSPERITY AND SCARCITY.
REFLECT MORE CAREFULLY ON THE BLESSINGS OF HAVING THE JOY OF THE LORD AS OUR STRENGTH


It is fair to say that a significant proportion of the reasons for bouts of sadness and constant negative stress in our lives is related to money problems.

The lack of money has had a role to play in broken homes, problems among brethren, cass cass with others, poor health and in some instances acute depression.

Let me say up front that I am not here to promote the “prosperity gospel” concept that is the hallmark of tele-evangelism.

I must say, however, that I believe that because we are so afraid of that approach, we have gone to the other extreme. There is a sense in which prosperity is seen as something to avoid like the plague.

I can speak from personal experience, that I made a conscious decision years ago to dramatically curtail any drive for material prosperity on my part. I had a serious fear that I would lose my soul if I did not temper the push for prosperity. I have never recovered from it which is why I am where I am today.

I did not have the benefit of wise council from the pulpit or otherwise that could encourage me to understand that the parable of the talents had meaning for me. That I was blessed with certain talents and I should not bury them out of fear of consequences that I made up in my head.

I did not have the wisdom to understand the implications of Matthew 7:7. That as Christians we in fact have a blank cheque from God and that it is only our lack of faith that prevents us from cashing it.

7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
9 “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

Here is the clincher: Many Christians are left to struggle on their own with a concern about maximizing the gifts that God has given them to acquire material wealth. Many would benefit from serious reflection on 2 Cor: 9:10

10 Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. 11 You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.
12 This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. 13 Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. 14 And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you.

Do you think that there would be an opportunity for joy to abound if there were more brothers and sisters with substantial means that could be used to support benevolence in our congregations and in outreach programmes?

What if we could support the full-time work of dynamic evangelists in our own mission fields?

AS PART OF STEP 4, WE NEED ALSO TO REFLECT ON WHETHER THE ABSENCE OF JOY IN OUR LIVES IS NOT A CONSEQUENCE OF FAILING TO RELY ON THE JOY OF THE LORD AS OUR STRENGTH

Why are so many Christians saddled with worry to the point of depression when Christ could not be clearer in Matt 6:25
Do Not Worry
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

We serve the same God as Abraham, we are a royal priesthood. Royalty is not usually associated with poverty. Let us shake off the fixation that we have with scarcity and a seeming commitment to be constantly struggling to make ends meet. Let us develop the faith to ask, seek, knock!

God has proven time and time again that scarcity is a man-made concept. Abundance is in His nature.

STEP 5: LOOK BEYOND THIS LIFE

The 5th step in the process of ensuring that ENJOY is not left out as we ENDURE is the need to look beyond this life:
1 Cor 15:19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

Praise to God for a Living Hope
1 Peter 1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, 5who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed

Heb 10: 32
32Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering. 33Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. 34You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions.
35So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. 36You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. 37For in just a very little while,
"He who is coming will come and will not delay.

38But my righteous one[f] will live by faith.
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#33 God has not promised skies always blue, Flower strewn pathway all our lives thru… God has not promised sun without rain, Peace without sorrow, joy without pain.
But God has promised strength as our day, rest when we labor, light on the way. Grace for our trials, help from above, unfading kindness, undying love.

Tho’ we have mingled sunshine and rain, Clouds decked with rainbows, JOY mixed with pain, Let us still trust His mercies right on, And sing His praises all the day long.