Joy vs. Happiness

Praise be to the might God we serve! Praise the Holy Spirit who illuminates the scripture for the Children of God! As I was driving home from Church I was thinking about a heavy metal band my friend and I both like. I have made the decision not to listen to them since their music is very angry and bitter towards life and God. My friend still listens to them, and I was role-playing in my mind how I would explain to him (a believer) why I do not listen to them any longer. This issue is my sensitivity to the emotions of music, and in most cases, the emotions in heavy metal are more exaggerated and boldly manifest than in other styles. Thus I would say that the intense anger and bitterness in this music to me is oppressive to my soul. I feel a weight, a burden if you will, on my soul when I listen to them. It was then that the Holy Spirit revealed to me this truth: we know that there is a difference between joy and happiness, and that we can have joy even when we are unhappy, but I have had a hard time finding a way to explain the difference. The Holy Spirit show me that the difference is that happiness is an emotion, which emotions come from our heart, while joy comes from our soul, effected by the Holy Spirit Himself. Some scriptures to consider: Matthew 22:37, " Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' " (NKJV). Here Jesus differentiates between the heart and soul, thus we can see that things of the heart and things of the souls are different as well. Also: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law." (Galatians 5:22 & 23, NKJV). The fruit of the Spirit of God manifest in our entire being, including our souls. Thus while we ride the emotional waves of this finite human life, our souls can rejoice in the Lord! Amen!

Search the Scriptures Daily

One of the most important spiritual disciplines is the daily reading of the Holy Scriptures. While God does speak to us directly, He has chosen his primary means of communication to be the Bible. Also, any word we do hear from God must be compared to the Bible, and if it does not line up, then it must be rejected. This is not just a suggestion, this is vital to the Christian life. We all know that the focal point of Christianity is Jesus, and we learn about Him, grow to know Him more, and become more like Him, by reading the Bible every day, with the Holy Spirit teaching you.
John 1:1 says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (NKJV). John 1:14a says, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us..." (NKJV). If you want Jesus, which I expect you as a Christian do, then you must read the Bible every day. It will change your life!

Servant Leadership Training

I finally get it! All this time that I have spent at Grace I have viewed my SLT as merely a requirement, even though I have enjoyed going. But last night, with much prompting of the Holy Spirit, I finally came to understand why Grace requires us to do this "Mandatory Volunteer" work. Matthew 20:25-26 tells us,"But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. I was showed this verse at my church's Shepherd School, a training course for Pastors, Deacons, Elders, and Deaconesses. God showed me that if I want to become a Pastor, I must be a servant. This applies to all in the kingdom of God, and it applies to every aspect of our lives. If I want to be great in God's kingdom, I must serve my wife, I must serve the brothers and sisters at Grace, I must serve my family, friends, and church family, and I must serve even my unsaved coworkers, and other strangers I come in contact with daily. This is vastly easier said than done, but with every spiritual discipline, it starts by praying that God would train me up in this, and it starts with daily walking with God.

Now I have done a lot of spouting my opinions these last few weeks. I would like to make this blog more interactive, so I am going to pose a question to you, the readers: We are baptized as a profession of faith, essentially telling the world that we have been saved by Jesus. But Jesus did not need salvation, He is the source of it. Then I ask you, why was Jesus Baptized? If you have any thoughts pleased post them in a reply.

A fresh working of the Spirit

Ever since that famous Day of Pentacost recorded in the book of Acts, the Holy Spirit has been at the center of each new church movement. First the Catholic Church, then The Eastern Orthodox, then The Protestant Churches and so on. Mankind's fleshly tendancy is to "institutionalize" their church movements after so long, abandoning the leading of the Holy Spirit, making law out of methods of practice and worship, and bring in extra doctrine that is unecessary. Thus the Holy Spirit quietly moves away and finds a different group of believers who genuinely want to be led by God. This is the story of how church movements happen. You can follow this pattern through history, with Israel, the Catholic Church, the Protestant Churches, and now to more recent movements such as "The Jesus Movement," which today has produced the Calvary Chapel churches.
I believe that it is time for a fresh working of the Holy Spirit. We need to abandon our prior disposition towards old systems and notions of how church should be run. The core to any genuine church movement is preaching Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. Everything else is a matter of opinion. This applies to the layout of the building, the types of music sung, the method of communion, and even what day of the week the primary service is held.
We also need to get rid of our preconceived ideas about those within the older denominations. The Catholic church has a lot of extra doctrine that does not lead to salvation, but, so long as they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior, they are saved. The point is that we must find a way to include them into our churches, not exclude them. Christ called for one church, and we must do all we can to be unified as the Body of Christ. This does not mean that we call false doctrine correct, or look away from sin. What it means is that we need to look at the how of our services and be flexible on the parts that are merely opinion.
My goal with this post is to inspire you; if we band together and seek first the Kingdom of God, we can be the next church movement. The first thing we must do is get on our knees (literally) and pray for revival in the American Church. As we read God's word and learn how the church should be run, God will show us when we pray how to act. Amen!