by David Brenneman
Something or someone will get your happiness. You will decide who's worthy.
The big question is how much, if any, does Jesus get?
Satan has for so long come up with ever more subtle ways to draw what ought to be what goes to Jesus and gets people to place it elsewhere.
Our sin nature really knows no bounds.
Consider it well just how many times that the Lord cut short the lives of people because of the intensity of the evil present within them. He saw their beginning from their end just as He knows yours. He saw that they wouldn't ever come to Christ for salvation. Saw that they would either draw themselves or many others from the plan of God for mankind.
On many occasions I have heard people say in interviews that someone left this world too soon. Most people want to use their wisdom to question the wisdom of God. To refute what He has decided.
Today's decade of people is attempting, and sadly successfully so, to redefine what God's Word says is sin AND sin's consequences. Giving a perception that indeed what is evil isn't so bad. That things done in jest aren't so bad, aren't so sinful.
Truth is the Spirit teaches the same yesterday, today and forever.
Truth is Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever.
Truth is that no matter how someone or something appears to bring happiness at the cost of grieving the Spirit, it's not beneficial or good for those growing in Christ.
And indeed when we embrace with joy those things that do not give rise to growing in Christ, we only hurt ourselves and the people that the Spirit has put in our paths.
"I am not serious! I was only joking!" Oh, my Dear Reader, on many occasions, after such things were done to me, I was not laughing. I wasn't at all joyful. Was not at all joining in with them in their definition of fun times. The test of time shows yet the pain of such things.
The Bible teaches us not to participate in such things.
All it takes to harm a growing plant is one single wrong move. A single incident can cause months, if not years, of attempting to repair itself.
Paul wrote of us needing to encourage one another all the more as we see the day of Christ drawing near. To lift one another up. To make disciples in the name of Jesus Christ. Putting off the old self and its practices. Putting on the new self, putting on the whole armor of God.
We will give our joy, our happiness, to things and people to whom it is misplaced. Most that I have encountered in my travels do not see the harm in trash talk. Calling it harmless fun. Calling it something other than harming another.
I am very thankful for those who chose to go the other way with regards to how they treated me. Those who chose to get to know me rather than not.
I am very great for the people who became friends by actually trying to get to know me rather than thinking the risk wasn't worth it.
In my life I have had lessons where God's shown me of my misplaced joy. Of various things or groups of people whom were placed higher on the shelf, put on the center stage of my heart.
Question any and every single decision in your life when you at all begin to think about how to downgrade the consequences, of how you can justify.
We who are in Christ are supposed to reflect Christ. He is the light of the world.
Our happiness is going to either go towards what is God honoring or its going to go towards something or someone who isn't.
We will either obtain harmful scars from our decisions or will build up endurance to withstand greater attempts to dethrone Jesus in our hearts.
Satan's schemes are to get people to willingly dethrone Jesus with us. Trying to make the things of this world look so juicy and good that what Jesus offers looks so much worse.
Robbing people of joy in the name of anything isn't honoring God. Several times in the book of Proverbs its written of the harm in saying "I was just joking!"
It's incredibly difficult to be thankful towards people when they've made decisions that took away other people's joy.
This Thanksgiving, examine your choices. Be sure that you're walking with Jesus as the Spirit has directed. That we're uplifting others. That we're encouraging them all the more as we see the day drawing near.
Many questions are rhetorically asked in regards to decisions in the Bible.
Growing in Christ means letting go of the things of this world. It means to embrace what Jesus would embrace. It means looking for the things of God that the Spirit is wanting and waiting to teach you.
Temptation abounds in our world.
Don't let it rob you of true joy in Christ.
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