Real Joy

Shalom.

Today we learned about real joy. We learned about the joy that comes from a person giving their life to Jesus. The joy that comes from a person knowing that they are loved; no matter what wrongs they have done.

Pastor Blakely allowed the Lord to have him explain to us the joy that God experiences when a person accepts Jesus Christ as their savior. This is the joy spoken of in Hebrews 12:1,2. And those that give their life to Christ are considered lost. Jesus taught about the lost in three parables in Luke 15.

In Luke 15, we see that something (or someone) can get lost in different ways. And what Jesus was saying was that no matter how you wound up lost, He has come that you may be found. It doesn't matter to Jesus how you were lost, it just matters that you are lost and need to be found.

The Lord was asking each of us, where is our joy? We need to stop being so concerned about self-preservation (selfishness) and concentrate on what God wants us to do -- win souls, that no one should be lost. We have to stop making everything about us. We have to get over ourselves and realize we have work to do -- kingdom work. There are people we have to reach; it is not all about pastors reaching the lost souls. And we have to die to our flesh, that we may live in the Spirit, be guided by the Spirit. We have to die to flesh so that the power of God that is in us is what governs us. (That is why fasting, when implemented correctly, is an important tool in teaching us how to keep our flesh under subjection.)

We have to change our focus and remember that we don't get saved to keep Jesus to ourselves. After we get saved, we should be taking advantage of every opportunity to share the good news with others so that they may experience the freedom and love that we experienced and are experiencing every day.

We need to spend time with God so that He can reposition our hearts to recognize lost (hurting) souls and that we can win them at any cost. We want to be able to respond to the question "What is your joy?" with words that include souls, winning and God. I know it is a tough question. But as pastor said this morning, that is the type of question we need to ask ourselves.

And we have to remember the common theme (or motivator) in all of this is LOVE. It is actually Agape love, which is unconditional love. We should love those we know the same as those we don't know, or are trying to know so we can introduce them to Christ and a relationship that will change them forever. We have to remember that God so loved the world (me, you, and them) that he gave his only begotten son....

Blessings.