To Enjoy God

Truly Happy

May 19, 2023 in Christian, Christianity, Theology, Uncategorized | Tags: honor God, Psalm 128, truly happy | Leave a comment

God loves us and wants us to be truly happy. Just read Psalm 128. It tells us how to be happy in Him and some of the tangible things that He gives us along the happy path of life.

Verse 1 says “Everyone who honors the LORD, who walks in God’s ways, is truly happy.”(Common English Version)

Happiness begins with honoring the LORD and walking in His ways. I like this version of the Bible, CEV. I believe that God loves us and wants us to be happy, and twice in the first two verses the Psalmist uses the word happy. This Psalm also uses the words bless and blessed, which in the Old Testament mean the happy condition of those who revere the Lord and do his will and put their trust in him and live under the guardianship and faithful care of the gracious Lord of life.

Verse 2 says “You will definitely enjoy what you’ve worked hard for – you’ll be happy; and things will go well for you.”

We enjoy life when we are able to eat the fruit of our labors. Most of the O.T. people lived in an agricultural society and they depended on the goodness of God to have good harvests. In Deuteronomy, Moses gave a list of blessings and curses. He said that if you obey God, you will have good harvests, but if you disobey his commands, then he will not send the rains to make the crops grow, or he will send locusts to eat the crops or enemies to take the food away.

A few years ago, our family went from Mexico, where we live, to Colorado, to visit my family. They live in an agricultural area where lots of wheat and corn are grown. One day they had a big hail storm. The next day we went for a drive and saw that many of the crops in large fields had been destroyed. The farmers who owned those fields were not able to enjoy the fruits of their labors. How sad to work hard for something and then not get the reward for the labor put in. How happy we are when see and enjoy the benefits of our investment of time and hard work.

Verse 3 says “In your house, your wife will be like a vine full of fruit. All around your table, your children will be like olive trees, freshly planted.”

Nothing God has given me brings me more pleasure and joy than my wife and children.

Verse 4 says “That’s how it goes for anyone who honors the LORD: they will be blessed!”

Another way to put it is that God loves us so much that if we honor Him we will receive blessings galore!

Verse 5 says “May the LORD bless you from Zion. May you experience Jerusalems goodness your whole life long.

The person who enjoys a happy life will be blessed by God from mount Zion, from Jerusalem. Before verse one of this Psalm, we read that it is a song of accent. This was a song that people would sing as they made their way up to Jerusalem to attend the three great festivals that God commanded the people to attend each year. They would go to Jerusalem and offer sacrifices at the temple. God’s presence was most powerful in the temple. That was the House of God. The idea was that from there his power radiated out to the city of Jerusalem, then to the region of Judah, then to all Israel, and then to the whole world. So any blessings that people received from God came initially from the temple. People were especially blessed by God when they worshiped him at the temple in Jerusalem. And they would see and experience the well being of God no matter where they lived as the blessings of God would flow to them from Mount Zion. Jesus is now the temple and rich gifts like grace, mercy and joy flow from His love out into the whole world.

What encouraging and inspiring words from Psalm 128. Surely we live in a “happy condition” because we are able to trust in the LORD and live under his faithful care. Our natural response is to honor him, walk in his ways and be truly happy.

Kingdom of God Happiness

May 1, 2023 in Christian, Christianity, Theology, Uncategorized | Tags: happiness, joy, Kingdom of God, Romans 14:17 | Leave a comment

God loves us and wants us to be happy. That’s an important aspect for us to keep in mind as we go through life living in this “already – not yet” kingdom of God. Paul reminds us in Romans 14 that the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, something the Roman Christians were losing track of, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. I like Wikipedia’s definition of joy; the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune, and is typically associated with feelings of intense, long lasting happiness.

That’s what God wants for his people. Intense, long lasting happiness. God’s people in Rome were getting all worked up about what foods were clean to eat and what foods weren’t, and were passing judgment on one another and condemning each other. Paul tells them in verse 14 that he personally, was convinced that nothing is unclean in itself, but if it distressed his brother in the Lord, that he would not eat certain types of food, because that would not be acting in love.

Acting in love is what God did for us in rescuing, redeeming and restoring us; in bringing us into his kingdom through the blood of Jesus the Messiah. Bringing us into his kingdom is all about righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. It is about well-being, thriving and flourishing. It is about feelings of intense, long lasting happiness.

Jesus speaks about the kingdom of God in terms of joy as well. In Matthew 13:44 Jesus says the kingdom of heaven (or kingdom of God) is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. When he buys the field he is filled with feelings of intense, long lasting happiness.

When we buy into the kingdom of God, we too get to experience that same happiness.

For us to experience this joy, we must have the Holy Spirit. Living in the kingdom of God means living under the reign of the King. It is the Holy Spirit who opens our eyes to the joy that awaits us in the kingdom and in the King, and who invites us to be a part of the kingdom. And it is the Holy Spirit who enables us to live in peace and to thrive with our kingdom brothers and sisters.

Paul writes in Ephesians 5 that we should be filled with the Spirit (18). When we are filled with the Spirit, we are filled with joy and sing and make music from our hearts to the Lord (19). This also gives us the ability and desire to “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (21). The Holy Spirit opens our spiritual eyes to a strange, new realization that goes against the grain of this world’s general operating system. That realization being that we will be happier people, not by domineering other people, but by submitting to other people. Not by ruling, but by serving. Not by throwing our weight around but by throwing our energy into helping others.

So, we may not be judging each other or condemning one another about what we are eating and drinking, but there is a fair amount of strife among Christians about different political and social issues. We can’t bury our heads in the sand when it comes to these issues and act like they don’t exist or are not important. But we also shouldn’t condemn to hell as reprobates those who hold different opinions than we do. We should remember, and, with the power of the Holy Spirit, live in the kingdom of God together as righteous, peace loving, children of God, and that will fill us with joy.

The Joy Set Before Him

April 6, 2023 in Christian, Christianity, Theology, Uncategorized | Tags: blood, Blood of Jesus, cross, crucifixion, happiness, Hebrews 12:2, joy, resurrection | Leave a comment

God loves us and wants us to be happy. This doesn’t mean that every moment of everyday we will be experiencing heavenly bliss. We have all gone through difficult times in our lives. Times of pain and suffering. Times of anguish and despair. When we go through rough spells, and we sometimes question whether God really loves us and wants us to be happy, I think that we should remember the words of Hebrews 12:2, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

I find three important ideas in this verse that can help us when the hard times come. First, fix our eyes on Jesus, not on our problem. Jesus who loves us and gave himself for us and who will never leave us nor forsake us. Second, focus on the joy that will inevitably come when the pain is gone. Every trial that we go through, God will use to make us happier people in the end. Third, endure. Don’t give up. Don’t lose faith. Always trust in the goodness of God. Always believe in his love and that nothing can separate us from his love.

Many times, when New Testament writers want to talk about Jesus passion and suffering on the cross, they use the word “blood”. And they use that word a lot, mainly to encourage Believers in their Christian walk, especially when that walk happens to be through the valley of the shadow of death. As we approach Good Friday, it is helpful to consider the following verses:

Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. Acts20:28

and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Colossians 1:20

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace. Ephesians 1:7

How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! Hebrews 9:14

The joy that was set before Jesus that enabled him to endure the cross, was us! You and me, fellow believers in the Messiah and adopted children of God. The benefits that we experience from the blood of Christ are – being included in the church of God; being reconciled to God; redemption and forgiveness of sins; and clean consciences that allow us to serve the living God.

As lent comes to an end and the celebration of the risen Lord approaches, let us rejoice and be glad, no matter what we are going through, because God loves us and wants us to be happy. We have the blood to prove that.

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My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought

My sin, not in part, but the whole

Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul.

Horatio Spafford

All-Delightsome

March 29, 2023 in Christian, Christianity, Theology, Uncategorized | Tags: All-delightsome, delight in God, delightsome, Psalm 1, Psalm 37:4, Thomas a Kempis | Leave a comment

When we try to describe God, we often use words like “Almighty”, “All Powerful”, All Knowing”. I have never heard anyone describe God as All-Delightsome, at least not until about a week ago when I was reading Thomas a Kempis and his book The Imitation of Christ, written in the 15^th century. When I read that word, I was, well, delighted. What a fun, unique way to say “happy”. Merriam-Webster defines delight as a high degree of gratification or pleasure: joy. Extreme satisfaction. This same dictionary defines delightsome as very pleasing: delightful. Dictionary.com says that the word is from the 1200’s and meant a high degree of pleasure or satisfaction.

Thomas a Kempis wrote, “For thou, O Lord, my God, art best above all things; Thou only art the Most High, Thou only the Almighty, Thou only the All-sufficient, and the Fulness of all things; Thou only the All-delightsome and the All-comforting.”

I love thinking about God as All-delightsome. He is the ultimate source of gratification, pleasure, joy and satisfaction. Of course Thomas a Kempis didn’t originate the idea that God is delightful, or that he is a source of delight and that he can be delighted by his people. The Bible says:

Happy is the one whose … delight is in the instruction of the Lord. Psalm 1:1,2

Praise the Lord. Blessed are those who fear the Lord,

who find great delight in his commands. Psalm 112:1

The Lord detests lying lips,

but he delights in people who are trustworthy. Proverbs 18:2

For the Lord takes delight in his people;

he crowns the humble with victory. Psalm 149:4

Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. Micah 7:18

The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing. Zephaniah 3:17

I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness. Isaiah 61:10

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4

Imagine that. God takes delight in people like you and me. That means he finds great pleasure and satisfaction in those of us who are humble and trustworthy. There are a multitude of reasons for us to delight in God, but I never thought that God would delight in us!

Thomas a Kempis found God’s rest particularly delightsome. He writes in this same meditation, “my heart cannot truly rest nor be entirely content, except it rest in Thee, and go beyond all gifts and every creature.”

His final thoughts reflect his happiness at God’s delightsomeness, “Excellent are Thy works, true are Thy judgments, and by Thy providence are things governed. Therefore praise and glory be unto Thee, O Wisdom of the Father, let my mouth and my soul and all created things praise and bless Thee together.”

Great advice for all of us. Have a delightsome day!

Deep and Wide Happy

March 16, 2023 in Christian, Christianity, Theology, Uncategorized | Tags: Deep and wide love, Ephesians 3:14-21, God's love, Power of God, Spirit's indwelling | Leave a comment

God loves us and wants us to be happy. This is the great truth that Paul wants his readers to know and take to heart, and he prays that this reality will grip all believers in Christ in the book we know as Ephesians.

He specifically prays that followers of Jesus may have power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.

I teach a Bible class at a local drug and rehabilitation center in Tlacolula, Mexico, and we studied this passage on Monday. I suspect that many of them had trouble believing that God could love them when they consider the terrible things that they had done under the influence of drugs and alcohol, the people that they hurt and the relationships that were destroyed.

The apostle Paul could understand these doubts. Before he experienced the incredible love of God, he hated Jesus, wanted to kill his followers and destroy the church. So it didn't make any sense that God could love him. He is right. It doesn't make sense that God could love any of us. Scripture says that we are all rebels, enemies and sinners against God. That is probably why Paul writes in verse 19 about this love that surpasses knowledge. It is impossible for us to wrap our minds around the fact that God loves us. And not just a little bit. His love for us is incredibly wide and long. Unbelievably high and deep. It will take us a lifetime to begin to “grasp” God's great love for us.

In this passage (3:14-21), Paul mentions the word “power” three times. It is only with the power of God, through the Spirits indwelling of our hearts, that we can appreciate his love for us and be “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

Imagine that, you and me, filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now that should make us happy!

Happy Under God’s Wings

March 8, 2023 in Christian, Christianity, Theology, Uncategorized | Tags: abused children in Mexico, Foundation For His Ministry, happy children, love of God, Psalm 36, refuge for children | Leave a comment

God loves us and wants us to be happy. This is King David’s message to the people in Psalm 36. He writes in verse 5:

Your steadfast love, O LORD, extends to the heavens,

your faithfulness to the clouds.

And in verse 7:

How precious is your steadfast love, O God!

The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

Verse 10:

Continue your steadfast love to those who know you,

and your righteousness to the upright of heart.

This tremendous love of God makes people happy. They feast on the abundance of God’s house. They drink from the river of God’s delights. They enjoy the fountain of life, and God’s light enables them to see the light (8,9).

For some people the greatest source of joy comes from taking refuge in the shadow of God’s wings. I think that is especially true for the girls and boys here at the children’s home in Oaxaca, Mexico. Many of the children who live here come from troubled, dysfunctional environments, where many times only one parent or a relative was around, and that “care giver” was many times abusive either emotionally, physically or sexually, and the children could run, but not hide. They had no place of refuge.

And then they come to FFHM’s home for needy children and find refuge; a place where they are safe and secure. Instead of being frightened of biological parents they are delighted with loving house parents and staff members who make sure that they are well cared for emotionally, physically, and most importantly, spiritually. They are introduced to our marvelous God who loves them, died for them, and is now on his throne watching over them and wants them to live lives of peace and joy.

They say that Christians are the hands and feet of God. That is true, but when I look around at my brothers and sisters in Christ, here at the mission, I see that we are also the wings of God. The wings of God where the children of mankind can take refuge.

God’s Great Love

February 14, 2023 in Christian, Christianity, Theology, Uncategorized | Tags: Ephesians 2:1-10, God's love, happiness, Valentines Day | Leave a comment

God loves us and wants us to be happy. I discussed this with the men at a drug and rehab center in Tlacolula, Mexico, yesterday. I am leading them on a study of Ephesians, and in this book, especially chapter two, Paul makes the fact of God’s love for us abundantly clear.

Ephesians 2:4 says, “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions.

Ephesians 2:7-8 talk about two other aspects of God’s great love, that is his “incomparable riches of grace” and his “kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”

The result of his great love is that we are happy!

We are happy because we were dead spiritually, and are now alive.

We are happy because God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms (6).

We are happy because we have been saved by grace through faith (8).

We are happy because we are God’s work of art created to do good works(10).

This Valentines Day we can enjoy pink hearts, red roses and dark chocolates, emblems of the love humans have for one another, but we should celebrate, rejoice and be glad in God’s great love, rich mercy and incomparable grace that will never fade away.

Happy Deliverance

January 17, 2023 in Christian, Christianity, Theology, Uncategorized | Tags: deliverance, happiness, happy, love, love of God | Leave a comment

God loves us and wants us to be happy. This is clear from many of the Psalms. Last week we saw it in Psalm 32, and it is even more prominent in Psalm 33. Psalm 33 is a liturgy in praise of the LORD.

God loved his chosen people Israel when this Psalm was written and sung at the temple, and he loves his chosen people, the Church, now:

The LORD loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love (5)

The eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love (18).

May your unfailing love be with us, LORD, even as we put our hope in you (22).

Because of God’s unfailing love, his people are happy:

Sing joyfully to the LORD, you righteous; it is fitting for the upright to praise him (1).

Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy (3).

Happy is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people he chose for his inheritance (12).

In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name (21).

God’s love for us is steadfast and never fails. He loves the righteous; those who live in right relationship with him and with their neighbors. He delivers them from the Evil One, from their enemies, and from themselves. In this Psalm, the people are especially happy, it seems, because they have just been delivered from a large army knocking on their door. Verse 10 says that the LORD foils the plans of the nations (those unrighteous nations who do not want to live in right relationship with God or their neighbor Israel). Verse 16 says that no king is saved by the size of his army and that no warrior escapes by his great strength. Verse 19 refers to the LORD delivering his people from death.

Sometimes we have an evil army knocking on the door of our lives, our family or our community of faith. But when we trust in God’s unfailing love and “wait in hope for the LORD” (20), we will come out of the situation, in the end, victorious! We will sing joyfully to the LORD and our hearts will rejoice in his holy name.

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Before you ever get a problem, God already has your deliverance planned. Joyce Meyer

Happy Forgiveness

January 9, 2023 in Christian, Christianity, Theology, Uncategorized | Tags: confession of sin, Forgiveness, God loves us, God's love, happy forgiveness, Psalm 32 | Leave a comment

God loves us and wants us to be happy. David writes in Psalm 32:1-2, “Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, who sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the LORD does not count against them and in whose spirit is no deceit.”

The NIV Study Bible defines blessed as the happy condition of those who revere the Lord and do his will and put their trust in him.

David starts off Psalm 32 talking about the general happy condition of all those who have had their sins forgiven or “covered”. I think he had in mind the sin offering or the blood sacrifice of an animal that was killed and burned on the alter in front of the tabernacle. The blood of the animal would be sprinkled and thus “cover” the sin of the one bringing the sacrifice. This offering in the Old Testament pointed to the blood of Jesus shed on the cross and is the true covering of sins and transgressions for all those who confess their sins and trust Jesus for forgiveness.

David goes on to say that he knows about sin and forgiveness in a personal way. When he had sinned and “kept silent” his bones wasted away, his strength was sapped and he groaned all day because the LORD’s hand was “heavy” on him. He finally acknowledged his sin to God and stopped covering up his iniquity so that his sins would be covered by the LORD.

God loves us. Verse 10 says the “LORD’s unfailing love surrounds the one who trusts him.”

God wants us to be happy. Verse 11 says, “Rejoice in the LORD and be glad,

you righteous; sing all you upright in heart.”

When we confess our sins and are forgiven, we are made righteous; upright in heart, which is to say we are living in right relationship with God and with our fellow man.

We rejoice and are glad and sing unto the Lord because it doesn’t get any better than that.

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When we stray from His presence, He longs for you to come back. He weeps that you are missing out on His love, protection and provision. He throws His arms open, runs toward you, gathers you up, and welcomes you home. Charles Stanley

Let God Put the HAPPY in Your New Year

January 2, 2023 in Christian, Christianity, Theology, Uncategorized | Tags: 2023, God is good, God's love, happiness, happy, New Year, Psalm 107:1 | Leave a comment

God loves us and wants us to be happy. How do I know this? The Bible tells me so. Its repeated many times in the Psalms. The LORD is good and his love endures forever. Give thanks to the LORD for he is good; his love endures forever.

One key to understanding that God loves us and wants us to be happy, is the word “good”. In the beginning, in Genesis 1, God makes light, land and sea and it is good. He makes plants and trees and calls them good. He makes the sun, moon and stars, and guess what? They are good. He creates animals, birds and fish. He says, ” They are good.” They are all good in their own right, but who are they good for? Humans! I don’t think the creation so far made God particularly happy, but he knew it would make humans happy. Adam and Eve; you and me. Finally he makes humans in his image and likeness, and then stands back and takes a look at it all and declares, “It is very good!”

The second key to understanding that God loves us and wants us to be happy, is the word “love”. All of us who have children love them and want them to be happy. We are not perfect, and often make mistakes in showing our love for them. Those who are in Christ are God’s adopted children. Our heavenly Father never makes mistakes in loving us. I like what Jesus said in Matthew 7, ” If you being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good gifts to his children. ” This goodness all starts with God’s love. Not with us. 1 John 4:10 tells us, “This is love, not that we have loved God, but that he has loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice for our sins.”

If that thought, act, gift and love doesn’t make us happy, nothing will!

As we enter a new year, we can imagine it as a kind of new creation. A blank slate, an empty book, and we can look forward to seeing what good words that God is going to write on the slate of our hearts; on the pages of our lives. We can anticipate wonderful gifts that our Heavenly Father is going to give us. Let’s look forward to the new year with excitement, joy and anticipation, knowing that God loves us and wants us to be happy!

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Praying that in 2023 you have –

12 months of success

52 weeks of laughter

365 days of fun

8760 hours of joy

525600 minutes of blessing

and 31536000 seconds of happiness