Spring 2024 has come upon us in Broken Arrow, OK

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Can't Have One Without The Other...

The last few months have probably been some of the hardest times for me emotionally and physically as my wife and I have traveled through our journey with the attack on her health.  While I would be pressed to name any one item as the cause of this, there have been a multitude of events that have added up to apply the pressure to our stand of faith.  But throughout it all, the Lord had been teaching me a concentrated lesson about His Love and His Joy!

This morning I awoke with the thoughts of 2 Timothy 1:7 running through my head.  After making the coffee, I settled into my desk chair and began to look at various translations of the verse.  Over the years I have looked at this particular scripture from every angle possible.  It was one of the first scriptures that I remember learning about in great detail at the very first Jr. High Snow Camp that my wife and I brought our group to in the late 1970’s.  Today I was drawn to the definition of the word “fear” and found myself reading from my array of Bible Commentaries and Greek/English Dictionaries.
Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible makes the conjecture that “Here is an allusion to the giving of the law on Mount Sinai.  This was communicated with such terrible majesty as to engender fear in all the Israelites: even Moses, on the occasion, did exceedingly fear and tremble.  The Gospel was ushered in, in a much milder manner…  Nothing was terrific, nothing forbidding; but all was inviting.  The very spirit and genius of it was a spirit of power, of love, and of a sound mind.”
As I read that I thought back to Acts chapter two when the Holy Spirit came and the message of the Gospel of Christ was first preached.  That event caused those who were born again to laugh, and dance and reel as if they were drunk!  The bystanders who came rushing over to see what all the commotion was about “said jokingly ‘They’re drunk on sweet wine.’” (Acts 2:13 God’s Word ©)  The gospel filled those folks with the joy of the Lord!
Then Peter, who a little over a month before had denied Jesus in the face of the people's accusations, was so filled with the love of God for those same folks, boldly stood amongst them and preached the Word and 3000 were saved!  As I considered all this the Lord made it clear to me that His love is always accompanied by His joy!  Then I began to have flashbacks to all the times over the last few months were I have been able to rejoice over the current situation, and while under tremendous pressure to yield to stress and the negative arguments screaming to me in the natural, to smile, be at peace and crack a joke or two with me wife… and laugh not only at the funny thought, but in the face of the enemy of our souls!
Yesterday began and ended with a good laugh.  As I was helping my wife to get ready for the day, I did something silly and my wife broke out into an elongated period of laughter.  She was laughing so hard that she began to cry!  Then as we walked into the kitchen she started laughing so intensely again that I had to take hold of her so that she wouldn't fall down!  At the end of the evening as I went over to help her up from the couch and into the bedroom to get ready for bed, she looked up at me with such a gleam of life in her eyes that it made my heart swell.  Then we both broke out into a bout of joyful laughter and thanksgiving unto God!
Joy really is a powerful medicine for those of us who get caught in the tangles of life.  (See Proverbs 17:22) But the true joy comes from the heart knowledge and personal experience of His love.  The two always go together.  Believe me when I say that have seen and felt lots of both of these, one without the other, in demonstration from some people around us, and their actions come across as empty words and as a meaningless gesture.
Make the time to reacquaint yourself with God’s love for you today.  Then let the joy that always accompanies it fill you up so much that you just have to go pour it out on someone else!  You’ll also find yourself on top of the circumstances that come against you instead of under there pile of stress and pressure that they try to bring along with them.  Have a good day.  Stay in tune to His Word, and keep asking yourself… “What am I expecting today?”

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