Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy. - Psalm 47:1
Behind The Pulpit
Prayer of The Week
WATCH THE 'TUDE!
By Andre Montell
READ: Proverbs 6:16-17
NOTE: You know, you're getting old if you remember 78 RPM records. LOL
HAVE A BLESSED AND SAFE WEEK IN THE LORD!
WATCH THE 'TUDE!
By Andre Montell
Attitude! You know an attitude can be as damaging as an unkind word or a forceful blow? We wield great power in the way we treat others. If we think that we are better than other people, it will show in our manner, our looks, our words and our actions. God despises the proud and haughty attitudes people develop. Our duty as Christians is to look at all individuals as equals, brothers and sisters whom we can reach out to. When we look down on others , we do not just withdraw our reach to them, but to Christ as well. Change that attitude, and feel better about others and yourself.
PRAYER: Heavenly Father, Lord, help me to see Your Spirit in all the people I meet. Lord, be sure that I never turn from another person due to pride. Teach me, O Lord, to love those around me as You would. Lord, purify my thoughts and my words that they may reflect Your grace and Your love. Allow me, O Lord, to spread goodness and light wherever I may go. With faith Lord, all things will be possible for me to do. Father, have mercy on me. Grant me the wisdom to know the difference between need and want, and to never sacrifice my integrity in order to obtain objects. I thank You, Father for another day on this earth. I thank You, Lord. In Jesus name. Amen.
PRAYER: Heavenly Father, Lord, help me to see Your Spirit in all the people I meet. Lord, be sure that I never turn from another person due to pride. Teach me, O Lord, to love those around me as You would. Lord, purify my thoughts and my words that they may reflect Your grace and Your love. Allow me, O Lord, to spread goodness and light wherever I may go. With faith Lord, all things will be possible for me to do. Father, have mercy on me. Grant me the wisdom to know the difference between need and want, and to never sacrifice my integrity in order to obtain objects. I thank You, Father for another day on this earth. I thank You, Lord. In Jesus name. Amen.
READ: Proverbs 6:16-17
NOTE: You know, you're getting old if you remember 78 RPM records. LOL
HAVE A BLESSED AND SAFE WEEK IN THE LORD!
A LIFE FULL OF JOY
(Book Excerpt from Discover Your Sense of Value)
By Pastor Johnny Harris
Provisional Full Gospel Church
Rochester, New York
JOY!!!!!
What a wonderful word!!! We see it at Christmas time on cards and
ornaments and other decorations. We see the words JOY and REJOICE
countless times in Scripture. But just what does it mean to YOU? Well,
here is what JOY means to me....
Joy can be described as happiness, bliss, or delight. If you are feeling joyful you are not dwelling on any bad things, you are not fearful, you are not sad, and you are not mad. Wouldn't it be marvelous to feel joyful all the time?
What I want to show you is that, if you have the Holy Spirit in you, you have joy in you ALL THE TIME! It is in you all the time and you have access to it at all times!
Jesus was talking to His disciples about abiding in Him after He was gone back to Heaven. He said, "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing." (Jo 15:4-5)
Once you are abiding you become a part of Jesus. You are part of the Body of Christ and He is the Head of that Body. Colossians 2:19 says, "And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God." Jesus, being the Head of the Body, nourishes the Body. He and the Body are one. We are one in Christ. Can you cut your head off and still live? Uh, I don't think so!
The Holy Spirit lives in you. The Holy Spirit is Jesus. The Holy Spirit isn't just a small object that stays in your heart or your brain. The Holy Spirit is in every inch of your body. You know how everything is made up of molecules, atoms, and such? Well, your body is not a solid object. Imagine if you will, that all the spaces around those molecules, neutrons, etc. that make up your body are filled with the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is Jesus who is God. The Holy Spirit is in you. In order to begin comprehending what that means you have to let go of your "human" mentality. You have to allow God to give you understanding.
OK, now, here is where the joy enters the picture. In John 17:11-13 Jesus is talking to God and says, "And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me that they may be one, as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled. And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves."
The joy is already in you because the Holy Spirit is in you. You have Jesus' joy already in you! You only have to tap into it.
The reason you don't feel the joy all the time is because you are not tapping into it. You know what a tap is, don't you? A tap is what you poke into a keg that lets the contents out. Rather than use a keg of beer for an example, let's use a sack lunch. Let's say you have a sack lunch and it is lunchtime. You are hungry even though you have a sack lunch. Let's say dinner rolls around and you are even hungrier, even though you have an entire meal in that sack. You are hungry because you haven't tapped into the food that is in the bag! You have the food that will nourish you, but it won't nourish you unless you ON PURPOSE eat it!! It's the same thing with the joy that is already in you! You have to USE IT!
Let's go even farther with this. If you have the Holy Spirit in you then you also have God's love. God is love, you know! If God is in you then love is in you. You also have peace in you.
Galatians 5:22-23 tells us, "...the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law." All those things are already within you!
There is something hindering the joy (and the other things) from being accessible. It is you. It is your "self." You can choose whether to be joyful or to be sad. It sounds simple, but it usually isn't. Many people choose not to have joy. Perhaps they get more sympathy from others if they are sad. Perhaps they feel they have the right to be mad because they are wronged. There are many reasons why we allow ourselves to stifle the joy and peace that is already ours.
We have to make a conscious effort to have joy or to not have joy. The joy is available and accessible and we have to realize that. Then we need to deal with the things in our life that hinder us from using the joy. Here is where you start. Think about this scripture in Ephesians 3:16-21:
God is the author of joy, and even non-Christians, when they have joy, are experiencing something that God has given them – just like when they have love, they are experiencing something that God has given them. God created it, he designed, and he gave it to human beings who are made in his image. Joy, like love and beauty, cannot be equated with biochemicals in the brain. You can’t put it in a test tube and measure it. It is not in the realm of matter – it is a spiritual reality, and God made it that way, and God wants us to have joy in our Christian lives.
*Bible Quotes are from King James Version
(Book Excerpt from Discover Your Sense of Value)
By Pastor Johnny Harris
Provisional Full Gospel Church
Rochester, New York
JOY!!!!!
What a wonderful word!!! We see it at Christmas time on cards and
ornaments and other decorations. We see the words JOY and REJOICE
countless times in Scripture. But just what does it mean to YOU? Well,
here is what JOY means to me....Joy can be described as happiness, bliss, or delight. If you are feeling joyful you are not dwelling on any bad things, you are not fearful, you are not sad, and you are not mad. Wouldn't it be marvelous to feel joyful all the time?
What I want to show you is that, if you have the Holy Spirit in you, you have joy in you ALL THE TIME! It is in you all the time and you have access to it at all times!
Jesus was talking to His disciples about abiding in Him after He was gone back to Heaven. He said, "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing." (Jo 15:4-5)
Once you are abiding you become a part of Jesus. You are part of the Body of Christ and He is the Head of that Body. Colossians 2:19 says, "And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God." Jesus, being the Head of the Body, nourishes the Body. He and the Body are one. We are one in Christ. Can you cut your head off and still live? Uh, I don't think so!
The Holy Spirit lives in you. The Holy Spirit is Jesus. The Holy Spirit isn't just a small object that stays in your heart or your brain. The Holy Spirit is in every inch of your body. You know how everything is made up of molecules, atoms, and such? Well, your body is not a solid object. Imagine if you will, that all the spaces around those molecules, neutrons, etc. that make up your body are filled with the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is Jesus who is God. The Holy Spirit is in you. In order to begin comprehending what that means you have to let go of your "human" mentality. You have to allow God to give you understanding.
OK, now, here is where the joy enters the picture. In John 17:11-13 Jesus is talking to God and says, "And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me that they may be one, as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled. And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves."
The joy is already in you because the Holy Spirit is in you. You have Jesus' joy already in you! You only have to tap into it.
The reason you don't feel the joy all the time is because you are not tapping into it. You know what a tap is, don't you? A tap is what you poke into a keg that lets the contents out. Rather than use a keg of beer for an example, let's use a sack lunch. Let's say you have a sack lunch and it is lunchtime. You are hungry even though you have a sack lunch. Let's say dinner rolls around and you are even hungrier, even though you have an entire meal in that sack. You are hungry because you haven't tapped into the food that is in the bag! You have the food that will nourish you, but it won't nourish you unless you ON PURPOSE eat it!! It's the same thing with the joy that is already in you! You have to USE IT!
Let's go even farther with this. If you have the Holy Spirit in you then you also have God's love. God is love, you know! If God is in you then love is in you. You also have peace in you.
Galatians 5:22-23 tells us, "...the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law." All those things are already within you!
There is something hindering the joy (and the other things) from being accessible. It is you. It is your "self." You can choose whether to be joyful or to be sad. It sounds simple, but it usually isn't. Many people choose not to have joy. Perhaps they get more sympathy from others if they are sad. Perhaps they feel they have the right to be mad because they are wronged. There are many reasons why we allow ourselves to stifle the joy and peace that is already ours.
We have to make a conscious effort to have joy or to not have joy. The joy is available and accessible and we have to realize that. Then we need to deal with the things in our life that hinder us from using the joy. Here is where you start. Think about this scripture in Ephesians 3:16-21:
That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.
God is the author of joy, and even non-Christians, when they have joy, are experiencing something that God has given them – just like when they have love, they are experiencing something that God has given them. God created it, he designed, and he gave it to human beings who are made in his image. Joy, like love and beauty, cannot be equated with biochemicals in the brain. You can’t put it in a test tube and measure it. It is not in the realm of matter – it is a spiritual reality, and God made it that way, and God wants us to have joy in our Christian lives.
*Bible Quotes are from King James Version
