JOY STOLEN

JOY STOLEN

Sunday, March 13, 2016

Luke 1:14 And you shall have joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice at his birth.

Matthew 6:19-34 Do not lay up treasures on earth for yourselves, where moth and rust corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up treasures in Heaven for yourselves, where neither moth nor rust corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The light of the body is the eye. Therefore if your eye is sound, your whole body shall be full of light But if your eye is evil, your whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! No one can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say to you, Do not be anxious for your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Behold the birds of the air; for they sow not, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns. Yet your heavenly Father feeds them; are you not much better than they are? Which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his stature? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They do not toil, nor do they spin, but I say to you that even Solomon in his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Therefore if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much rather clothe you, little-faiths? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, With what shall we be clothed? For the nations seek after all these things. For your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow; for tomorrow shall be anxious for its own things. Sufficient to the day is the evil of it.

  “joy” is mentioned in 158 verses in the KJV, 58 times in the New Testament. It makes for an interesting enlightening word study.

  There are many joy-stealers in life, the greatest one not being others, or even Satan, but self-inflicted by self.

  When individuals, Christian or not, think other than Bible-wise they live solely emotionally dependent on events, happenings. This includes obsessing about the future. I mention a few I’ve known.

  Harry. His main topic was his inheritance. He could generate more conversations about his hoped-for future than a loquacious sportscaster talking about the Cornhuskers.

  Bob. His excitement centered on his big future settlement from an Asbestosis Class Action Suit, especially so as it had yet to actually affect his health. He planned on traveling as he never had before.

  Jackson. Retirement this, retirement that . . . on and on and on since 1955 when we first went to work for the company.

  I don’t remember any one of these men being happy in the present for more than a few moments at a time during some cheerful event. Clueless as to Jesus teaching recorded in Matthew 6:34 they thought and lived apart from God’s abiding joy.

  Beware dependency of present happenings, or hoped for event. It isn’t that they don’t or may never occur, it’s that such are not to be our permeable focus for or source of joy.

  Let’s let that be Merry Christmas every day in every way. 

EBB4

Postlogue: Harry’s wealthy parents, in response to his self-centered plans, gave all their money to charity when they died. Bob, always a heavy smoker and refusing to wear a respirator working in the foundry, died horribly of lung cancer before retirement or settlement of class action suit. (It has yet to be settled.) Jackson died before he was eligible for retirement. His wife collected 50% of his pension. All of those men missed the preeminent truth that the future is now.