What has happened to all your joy?

Galatians 4:15, MIN (1978)

 

What has happened to all your joy? That was how the old NIV phrased it. In the New King James version, the question was "What then was the blessing you enjoyed?" Paul was writing to the churches in the Galatian region, and he noted that they seemed to have lost the joy that they once had enjoyed. Many had turned back to the world, and such a turning robbed them of the blessings that they had so enjoyed when they had been living as Christians. Though these Christians had initially turned from their lives of idolatry and had experienced great joy as a result, once they went back to their old ways, their joy slowly evaporated.

 

I believe this happens to all of us, from time to time. It's not so much that we are returning to our wicked lives in a headlong plunge, but we do get distracted. Life continues to demand our attention. We have jobs to go to, families to raise, and sometimes even unreasonable and ill-tempered people to deal with. In other words, we get caught up again in that old rat race that we had been running before we became Christians, and such pursuits always have a way of taking away our joy.

 

It is important for us to understand what joy is before we can fully understand how we can lose it in the first place. Joy is partly an emotion, but it is much more than that - it is a state of being. It comes as a direct result of God's blessings that he gives to those who are living for Him and Christ. In other words, it is a spiritual blessing, and it is therefore entirely unavailable to those who are not in a covenant relationship with Him. This "covenant" relationship is something we are all born with. Jesus said that unless we change and become like little children that we cannot enter the kingdom of God. Peter said to those who were no longer children that once they had obeyed the Gospel that God would add them to the number of those who were saved - the church (Acts chapter 2). 

 

So, when we are little kids, we are typically filled with joy. Joy goes beyond mere contentment and simple happiness in that it is a direct result of being blessed. A dog can be content with a full stomach, and an addict can experience a brief euphoria from his drugs, but neither is the result of God's blessings that are given as a reward for a faithful life. Joy is the knowledge that we are saved (even though we do not deserve it) and it is an inward feeling that goes beyond the temporary happy times that anyone can experience from worldly pleasures. It does involve a measure of happiness and contentment, but it is so much fuller than that because it comes from the never ending well of the Spirit of God.   

 

I know that I may seem to be beating this definition to death, but the reason I go into such depth on this is because it helps us to understand a fact that sometimes bewilders us when we lose it. When Paul asked the Galatians where all their joy had gone, he was in part pointing out that they had lost this blessed stated because they had drifted from Christ. And when we lose Christ as our focus in life, we lose our joy as well. 

 

In other words, the loss of joy is a symptom that is there to alert us that something is wrong. The pain we experience when we are injured is an important part of our physiology. The pain we focus on is not the root of the problem - it is the broken bone or burned hand that is the problem. The pain just alerts us to the problem. In a similar way, the loss of joy from our lives is not the true problem, though we feel it to our very core when we lose it. It is this loss of joy that tells the budding adult that he is no longer a child and that there is now a penalty imparted upon him for the sin in his life. In a like manner, it is the loss of joy that tells a Christian that he has gotten off the tracks somewhere. Both have lost their covenant position before God because of the unrepented sin in their lives and the result is a loss of the joy that they experienced when they remained in that covenant.

 

So, if you have lost your joy, maybe it is a symptom of a deeper problem that needs to be addressed. It is true that there will be times of unhappiness and discontent in life, but these should be temporary. And regardless of the trials that we all experience in life, these trials cannot in and of themselves steal our joy. That is something that can only happen when we lose sight of Jesus and our devotion to Him. So, if you really have lost your joy, then it is time to take a fresh look at your life and see why. Having discovered that reason, we can then take the necessary steps that will lead us back to God and Christ. 

 

The Galatians were doomed to a life devoid of joy for as long as they placed things of the world above their devotion to Christ, and it will be the same for us in our lives. But, once we have returned God to His rightful position as King of our lives, and once we are walking again in the light of Christ, we will then rediscover that wonderful blessing of joy that God showers upon all of His faithful children. Do you have joy? Then keep on being faithful and be thankful! But, if the joy is missing from your life, maybe it's time to rededicate your life to Christ. It's something we all need to consider from time to time, don't you think?

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

II Timothy 2:15, ESV

 

If you have ever cut logs or split much firewood, then you know one of the most important things you can do is to keep the blade of your saw or axe sharp. This goes against the grain of those who want to get to the work as quickly as possible, because sharpening the blade takes time. But as any experienced woodman knows, the sharper the blade, the quicker the cutting, so the time you invest by taking time out to sharpen the saw at the beginning will be more than rewarded in the end, as the work will go much faster. And though the one who gets right to the cutting will certainly appear to be accomplishing vastly more than the one who starts off by sharpening his saw, in the end it will be the one with a sharp blade who will cut more wood and feel less exhausted after the work is completed.

 

Abraham Lincoln, a pretty smart fellow, put it this way: "Give me six hours to cut down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe".

 

This idea of sharpening the saw is Stephen Covey's final secret revealed in his book "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People". After interviewing numerous people who were highly successful in their fields, he noted that these were the people who were the most likely to keep on improving themselves through continuing education and regular study. Those who are most successful in life are typically those who never quit learning, so they never quit growing. And a person who continues to grow who has already achieved great things in life will always be a force to be reckoned with.

 

There is no area in life in which this is truer (or more important) than in our service to God. God knew how important it would be for His people, and especially His leaders, to be reading His word on a regular basis so that they would not forget His commandments. In fact, God had Moses give this instruction to Israel's future kings several hundred years before the first king was ever crowned:

When he take the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the priests who are the Levites. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life..." Deuteronomy 17:18-19, NIV (1978).

 

God, who knows everything, realized in advance just how important it would be for his leaders to know and understand His law. So, he instructed for them to write a copy of that law and then read it all the days of their lives. Did you know that our first record of daily Bible readers were kings? Perhaps this will give us the incentive we need to continue our reading of God's holy Word on a daily basis. God knew this vital habit several thousand years before successful men of our era were even born. If we want to maintain our positions of great success, we are going to have to sharpen the saw. For success and high achievement are not something we accomplish and then somehow just magically maintain. Effectiveness for God will require that we sharpen the saw daily by reading His Word and then applying its principles to our own lives. 

 

Abraham Lincoln discovered this truth as a young man. While researching the habits of highly effective people, Stephen Covey learned that these successful people will continue their education through diligent study. God knew this truth before the world was even created. The question is, do we see its importance now? Those wishing to be highly effective in any area of life, and particularly in the most important area - our service to God, will readily see the absolute need of sharpening the saw.

 

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

I Cor. 12:27, NIV (1978)

 

We need each other. In the Word of God, this is made especially clear, as it is emphasized that the church is made up of each individual member and that all are needed. In Paul's first letter to the church at Corinth, he stresses that every Christian has a role in the church just as every part of the physical body has a role. As important as the hand is, it would not be as effective if the body did not have a foot to carry that hand around to the places it needed to be. Even the parts that seem less important are vital, even if they are not as prominent as others. It is true that we all need a voice to communicate, but without those vital, unseen organs such as the lungs and kidneys, we would cease to exist. And if we ceased to exist, even the voice of an angel could do no good.

 

This is the truth that Stephen Covey noticed when he was trying to find those vital habits that all highly effective people seem to have in common. In fact, his sixth habit stresses just that: We need each other! He put it this way: We need to synergize, for the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. If that seems confusing, then think of it this way: two people working together can usually get more done than the same two people working alone.

 

Still seem confusing? Maybe an example that I heard from a wise old cowboy would help. This cowboy is an expert horseman, though I doubt he would make that claim for himself. He said that he likes to watch "horse pulls". If you have a horse that can pull a 3,000-pound sled, and you match him with a comparable horse that can also pull 3,000 pounds, how much could they pull if they were harnessed and pulling together? The mathematician in me immediately determined that it would be 6,000 pounds, but that answer was wrong. How could this be since the sum of 3,000 and 3,000 is 6,000? 

 

The reason for the answer lies in the fact that horses are a lot like people. When by themselves, they can only do so much. But, when working together in the same harness, they can accomplish more - sometimes significantly more. Because of this, it would not be unusual for two horses that could pull no more than 3,000 pounds each when pulling on their own, to pull 8,000 pounds when harnessed together and working towards pulling the same load.

 

This is synergy!

 

Synergizing in business means that we can put together a team of individuals to work far more effectively than they could ever work alone. Henry Ford's assembly line is one of the greatest examples of this method that has ever been discovered. While it is true that he was not the first to come up with this technique, he was definitely the first to use it in the automotive industry and he was the one who came up with innovation after innovation to make the process even more effective.

 

Now, before we go too far, it should be pointed out that they are some things that are better accomplished alone, such as tying one's own shoes and eating one's own meal. Still, you have to admit that it probably took a fairly large assembly of individuals to make those shoes and shoelaces, and it took an awful lot of people to bring the end product of your meal to the dinner table. Synergy, we discover, is a very important principle indeed when it comes to being effective in just about every aspect of our lives.

 

God recognized this long before men came along and gave the process a fancy name. In the garden, God saw that it was not good for man to be alone. King Solomon said that two are better than one. Paul said that there are no unnecessary parts in the body. Since the body of Christ is the church, God wants us to know the importance of working together if we are to ever be as effective as we can be for Him. And being effective for God is vital if we are to ever be able to actually help others to the best of our ability. It is true that there are some things that are better done on our own, but we still need to recognize the role of Christ and the members of the church in allowing us to get to the point that we can actually do our individual part.

 

The sixth habit of highly effective people is to synergize, for the whole is indeed greater than the sum of the individual parts. This is true in marriage, it is true on sports teams and businesses, and it is especially true in the church. So, if we ever want to be as highly effective as we can be for God as a church, we are going to have to work together. The reason is the same that God stated in the beginning in that ancient garden when He pronounced that great truth, "It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." The fact is that we still need one another if we are ever to accomplish all of the things that God wants us to. And there is a "bonus" to this principle as well: It is a lot more fun to go through life with others than it is alone. We really do need each other!  

Some trust in chariots, and some trust in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God.

Psalms 20:7, KJV

 

Another election has come and gone. Regardless of the outcome you were hoping for, you have to admit that it is likely one of the most consequential elections of our lifetimes. In the years leading up to an election that the opposition feared, a candidate was accused of a laundry list of felonies that heretofore had never been pursued. He was convicted and the only thing that prevented him from being put in prison was a slow legal process that allowed the case to be reviewed multiple times by both sympathetic and unsympathetic courts.

 

But the worst thing that happened through all of this was that his secret service protection was partially removed and fully compromised to the point where an assassin's bullet nearly took his head off. Whether you believe that this was unavoidable occurrence or the result of incompetence, (or if you were like me and thought that it may have had an intentional element that involved a conspiracy to murder a political opponent) it really doesn't matter. The point is that our political situation in this country is so divided that the conditions were permitted to exist that could have permitted a political opponent to be assassinated.

 

It has happened before. King David, a man after God's own heart at one point of his life, committed adultery with one of his most devoted soldier's wife. In order to avoid getting caught, he ordered his top general to put that man in the most dangerous position of a battle, and then have the rest of the troops withdraw so that the man would be killed.

 

It worked!

 

But David did not escape undetected as he had planned, for God sent a prophet to him to tell the king that God knew what he had done. David, a good man who had gotten caught up in a whirlwind of evil, was brought to his knees in repentance. And because he was a man after God's own heart, and because God had promised him that His Messiah would come from his lineage, God forgave King David. One of the most important of Christ's forefathers, and the one who had committed one of the vilest sins in recorded history, was forgiven. This is an important part of our legacy, for it reveals the depth of God's great capacity to forgive even those who have been involved with the worst of sins.

 

The reason I bring up this example is this: If a man as righteous as David could go off the rails so far into sin that he could get involved in a conspiracy to commit murder, then what does that say about men and women who are so wicked that they have no fear of the Lord and no regard for His commandments? Do you believe that they will stop with one failed assassination attempt? Do you believe that just because the election was lost that they will now demurely surrender and allow this enemy to begin a type of purge that will likely result in their removal from power? Or, possibly, do you believe in the power of our modern-day chariots and horses to protect the President so that we don't need the Lord's help anymore?

 

I do not. I have observed through the years that those who practice evil and who never have a change of heart that leads them to repentance only tend to get more bold in their wicked endeavors. I hope I am wrong about all of this, but this is what I am convinced of now. Because I am convinced of this, I believe that our nation is in great peril. I have to admit the last time a leader was elected after a period of sinful decline; I just breathed a sigh of relief and went on with business as usual. Because of this error in judgment, I stopped praying as fervently after that election as I has been praying before the election. I think a lot of people did and as a result of this failure to seek God's continual protection, the nation slid into an even worse state than it had been before.

 

Those on the other side of the political aisle will say it's because we had been going in the right direction before, and then we started going in the wrong direction. But I am reminded that before President Trump was elected the first time that the nation had already begun to dabble in open sexual immorality, and that they had fully embraced the heinous sin of abortion at any stage of pregnancy. So, I am convinced that things got worse not because we had attempted to reverse the sinful direction of the nation, but because we got complacent and failed to remove completely the cancer of sin that had sickened the nation in the first place.

 

The point of all this rambling is simply this: We have let down our guard before after thinking we had won the battle, and it resulted in a worst condition than we were in before. If we let our guard down now and cease to continue to pray for a national repentance and a widespread return to the Godly principles that allowed this nation to become great in the first place, then I am convinced that we will have lost our last best chance to help get America back on the right track. We have been inundated with unrighteous behavior that involves opening our borders to known criminals, allowing illegal drug use, allowing our children to be exposed to perversion in many of our schools, allowing men to use women's most private facilities, a failure to protect honest businesspeople from theft, and permitting the killing the most innocent of our society.

 

If we think for a moment that the ones who are so depraved that they have ushered in and protected these wicked practices are now going to stand idly by and let the new sheriff in town stop them without a fight, then I think we are more than a bit naive. I am convinced that, barring repentance, wicked men do not willingly give up their wicked behavior without a fight. If the comments and actions that have already occurred in the short time since the election is any indication, I believe that their efforts to fight those who would interrupt their sinful lives has just begun.

 

So, I am convinced that we do not need to let our guard down, I am not saying that we do not give those who wish to repent the opportunity to do so, but I am saying that we do not give those who have already expressed a refusal to repent any opportunity to carry out their wicked plans. In short, I believe that we need to continue to repent and seek God's mercy for our past sins, and I believe that we need to be praying that God will intervene on our behalf to protect us from those who refuse to repent. I believe we need to be praying for the protection of those leaders who desire to do the right thing, as well as for wisdom that they may know what that right thing is. 

 

When it becomes necessary to purge evil from society, it does not necessarily mean that everyone who has been guilty of that evil must be destroyed. King David was given the chance to repent of his evil conduct and because he was a man after God's own heart, he too that chance. I am convinced that there are people like that today, and we need to give them a chance to repent. What we do not need to do, however, is give those who refuse to repent another chance to infect our society with their sinful conduct. Such miscreants must be removed from their positions of power, and never be given another opportunity to return.

 

If all this upsets you, then understand this: I believe it is time for a national repentance and a return to God and His standards before it is too late. The only way this can be done is for those who have been leading the way to America's decline be removed from their positions of authority. They have done damage enough! It is time for us to consider their innocent victims - our children and grandchildren among them - and get back to being a righteous people and a nation that is pleasing to God. We cannot do this if we let down our guard, so by all means keep your guard up.

 

And don't forget to pray! No amount of modern-day horses and chariots can save us from the evil we have seemed to have embraced, Only God can do that!