HOW TO LIVE A JOY-FILLED LIFE

Good Morning, Meetpastordan Readers…I love mornings like this. The first thought on my mind  when I opened my eyes today was this song I sang as a child: “Oh how I love Jesus, Oh how I love Jesus, Oh how I love Jesus, Because He first loved me!”

But as you know from my story, there were many years I didn’t sing that song because I drifted away from my early childhood teachings and pursued my own path – which took me to a very dark place. But here’s the Good News at work..Jesus was still there to pick up the pieces and put this “humpty dumpty” back together again. So today when I sing, “Oh how I love Jesus”, it is because I have experienced his unconditional, unending, unfailing love for me. Consequently, today I live a joy-filled life knowing that I am a new creation in Christ and will spend eternity with Jesus and all Christ-followers in Paradise.

But unfortunately, I lost many years of joy by being “too smart” and “too full of myself”. In my mind I had all the answers and everything fit into “my paradigm of wisdom”. So when I would hear someone profess their faith, I would snicker and ridicule them saying, “How can any reasonably intelligent person be expected to believe such a fairy-tale. This is just religion trying to keep you in bondage to its self-promoting agenda.” Unfortunately I really believed that for thirty-plus years. In fact, if someone would have told me I would someday make the last statement in the paragraph above, it would have sent me into a tirade!

But today when I look back at that time, I realize I was the one held in bondage by my own ignorance. Not ignorance in terms of stupidity, but ignorance from not knowing the truth. Jesus tells us in John 8:32: “If you follow my teachings you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” The fact is…I was unaware of the truth!

Notice that promise begins with the responsibility being on the listener, “if you”. The onus is on us to be willing to make the effort to find the truth. Today I believe that any anyone who is “willing” to open the Bible and connect the unmistakable dots cannot help but find the Truth. But alas…most people don’t do that. And why is that? Because most people have bought into worldly thinking and satan’s lies and deception.

Bob George, author of “Classic Christianity” tells us that the truth will set us free, but error keeps us in bondage. Below are some of the errors I believed about God that kept me from the truth  Each error is followed by the true statement.1. God is: distant and uncaring; truth: intimate, kind and compassionate. 2. God is: never satisfied with me, is impatient or angry with me; truth: eager to spend time with me, patient, slow to anger, loving, gentle and kind. 3. God takes the fun out of life; truth: his will is good, pleasing and perfect to me. He wants to give me life to the fullest. 4 God is: controlling or manipulative; truth: is full of grace and mercy. 5 God is: condemning and unforgiving; truth: tenderhearted and forgiving. His arms are always open to us. It was becoming aware of God’s true nature that brought me out of the darkness and into the light.

Then my mind was open to learn from the Book of Ephesians. I learned that God always had a plan for mankind, even before the world was created, and even before the fall of man. And that plan centered on Jesus Christ. God knew man would fall away from his intended purpose, so his plan was always to provide a Savior to do for us what we would prove without a shadow of a doubt we could not do for ourselves. Apostle Paul stated this emphatically in Romans 5:6: “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.” Because of our pathetic state of being, the time was right to step in and provide the answer for the dilemma of mankind; SIN! (Sin in this case means we lived with the focus on our self rather than on God.)

Romans 3: 21-25 tells of the implementation of God’s plan. “But now God has shown us a different way of being right in his sight – not by obeying the law, but by the way promised in the Scriptures long ago. We are made right in God’s sight when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sin. And we all can be saved in the same way, no matter who we are or what we have done. For all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet now God in his gracious kindness declares us not guilty. He has done this through Christ Jesus, who has freed us by taking away our sins. For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God’s anger against us. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us.”  Once I got my erroneous thinking straightened out, the truth began to take root in me.

But notice that Jesus was very specific about what truth he was talking about. He said, “when you follow my teaching”. He was very specific. Not worldly teaching, but His teaching. His teaching IS what sets us free. And what did Jesus teach? Love, mercy, kindness, grace, forgiveness, humility, tolerance and service to our fellow man.  Now I know that the teaching of Jesus did provide many qualities  that had been missing in my life.

Today I know who I am in Christ. I’m a Child of God; I’m grafted into His family; my sins are forgiven; I am guaranteed eternal life; I am worthy and acceptable in His eyes because I am covered with the blood of Jesus; I am heir to all the spiritual blessings in the heavenly realm; and I am heir to all the promises in the Bible.

Because of this reality, today when I sing, “Oh how I love Jesus”, it is because Jesus was willing to pay the redemptive price for me that makes all the above blessings possible. Because I am in Christ, I live a joy-filled life that I believe is unobtainable from any other source. Jesus is the answer. Jesus is the Real Deal!

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Happy New Year to Y’all and May God Bless you in 2016

Dan Presgrave (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)