HAPPY CHRISTIANS . . .
We live in the 5th largest senior citizen's population of the country
and rub shoulders with thousands of seniors. In my eight years in this
community I have met some of the grumpiest people. Unfortunately some of
them have been Christians.
God has wired all of us differently and I realize that part of my
"wiring" is that I tend to be optimistic and positive in my outlook. I
tend to look at the glass as "half full" while others tend to look at
the glass as "half empty." I have a wonderful group of men and women
that meet with me in the mornings to pray and for several months I would
walk away from the prayer time frustrated and depressed. Then I realized
that most of my key leaders are wired the opposite of how I am wired.
Two or three of us are excited for the brand new day and all the
challenges before us. We are happy and excited about to see what God is
going to do next. The rest of the team are just happy that they are
awake. Just their demeanor sends a signal that they wished they were
still in bed. The glass is definitely "half-empty."
Over the years I have been involved in leading worship and one of the
things that has made me chuckle is watching people sing. We can be
singing songs about joy and all that God has done for us, but someone
how the joy and happiness hasn't made it from the heart to the face.
Now I am not suggesting to you this morning that we need to put on a
false face and be fake with people we rub shoulders with. But I do
believe that we could impact the kingdom by allowing the joy that is in
our hearts to bubble up from within and show itself on our faces. There
are so many unhappy, miserable people, that your countenance alone could
give you a reason to share the hope that is within you.
In reading through some of the Psalms this morning, I read these words
from Psalm 16 from THE MESSAGE: "I'm happy from the inside out, and
from the outside in, I'm firmly formed. You canceled my ticket to hell
-- that's not my destination."
This morning I am happy that because of JESUS -- my ticket destination
has been changed from hell to heaven! That in itself ought to make me
happy today. I deserve hell -- but instead, because of His grace (God
giving me what I don't deserve) and mercy (God NOT giving me what I do
deserve) -- heaven is my destiny. Wow!
I learned a little chorus in Sunday School many years ago: "I'm
in-right, out-right, up-right, down -right happy all the time, I'm
in-right, out-right, up-right, down-right happy all the time. Since
Jesus Christ came in -- and cleansed my heart from sin -- I'm in-right,
out-right, up-right, down-right happy all the time."
Lord, may my life today bubble over with the joy and happiness that is
in my heart because of what YOU have done in my life.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
You have received this email either because you either subscribed via
www.americaskeswick.org <http://www.americaskeswick.org/> , or you
filled out a subscription card at America's KESWICK to receive the daily
Freedom Fighters email.
You are subscribed to this list as ssutter.freedom@blogger.com. If you do not want to
continue your subscription, reply to
freedomfighters-unsubscribe@lists.americaskeswick.org.
No comments:
Post a Comment