Don't Worry Be Happy

Psalm 19:7-11 (ESV)

7 The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple; 

8 the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes; 

9 the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether. 

10 More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. 

11 Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward. 

Mark 12:29–34 (ESV)

Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” 32 And the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him. 33 And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” 34 And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that no one dared to ask him any more questions. 

Isaiah 29:13–14 (ESV)

13  And the Lord said: 

  “Because this people draw near with their mouth 

and honor me with their lips, 

while their hearts are far from me, 

  and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men, 

 14  therefore, behold, I will again 

do wonderful things with this people, 

with wonder upon wonder; 

  and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, 

and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.” 

2 Corinthians 1:3–7 (ESV)

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. 6 If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. 7 Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort. 

Romans 8:38–39 (ESV)

38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Romans 8:28 (ESV)

28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 

2 Timothy 4:18 (ESV)

18 The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen. 

2 Corinthians 9:8 (ESV)

8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. 

1 Thessalonians 5:18 (ESV)

18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 

1 John 5:3 (ESV)

3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. 

Psalm 16:11 (ESV)

11  You make known to me the path of life; 

in your presence there is fullness of joy; 

at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. 

Romans 15:13 (ESV):

13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. 

Give God Your Revenge

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” (Romans 12:19)

Why is this such a crucial promise in overcoming our bent toward bitterness and revenge? The reason is that this promise answers one of the most powerful impulses behind anger — an impulse that is not entirely wrong.

In many cases, real wrongs have been done to us. Therefore, it is not entirely wrong to feel that justice should be done. What’s wrong is to feel that we must make it happen and that we may feel bitter until it does. This would be a deadly mistake.

During my seminary days, Noël and I were in a small group for couples that began to relate at a fairly deep personal level. One evening we were discussing forgiveness and anger. One of the young wives said that she could not and would not forgive her mother for something she had done to her as a young girl.

We talked about some of the biblical commands and warnings concerning an unforgiving spirit.

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. (Ephesians 4:32)

“If you do not forgive others . . . neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew 6:15)

But she would not budge. So I warned her that her very soul was in danger if she kept on with such an attitude of unforgiving bitterness. But she was adamant that she would not forgive her mother.

The grace of God’s judgment is promised to us here in Romans 12 as a means of helping us overcome such a deadly spirit of revenge and bitterness.

Paul’s argument is that we can be sure that all wrongs will be dealt with by God and that we can leave the matter in his hands because vengeance belongs to the Lord. To motivate us to lay down our vengeful desires he gives us a promise: “I will repay, says the Lord.”

The promise that frees us from an unforgiving, bitter, vengeful spirit is the promise that God will settle our accounts. He will do it more justly and mercifully and more thoroughly than we ever could. He punishes all sin. Nobody gets away with anything. He punishes it either in Christ in the cross for those who repent and trust him, or in hell for those who don’t. Therefore, we can back off and leave room for God to do his perfect work.

John Piper 

Do you know your family's spiritual heritage?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments.” Psalm 78:7

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

On June 8, 1845, Andrew Jackson said, “The Bible is the rock upon which our Republic rests.” Just a few years prior, in 1820, another of our forefathers, Daniel Webster, said, “Let us not forget the religious character of our origin.” In the days of our founding fathers, people didn’t quibble about the Bible’s importance. Our forefathers had the highest veneration for the Christian religion. They had journeyed in its light and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate, listen to, and infuse its influence through all their institutions: civil, political, and literary.

ACTION POINT:

American heritage is important, but so is your personal spiritual heritage as a believer and as a family. Why not take some time this week to write down the spiritual heritage of your family?

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

When Will I Be Satisfied?

I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:26)

Imagine being able to enjoy what is most enjoyable with unbounded and increasing energy and passion forever.

This is not now our experience. Three things stand in the way of our complete satisfaction in this world.

Nothing in this world has a personal worth great enough to meet the deepest longings of our hearts.

We lack the strength to savor the best treasures to their maximum worth.

Our enjoyment of things here comes to an end. Nothing lasts.

But if the aim of Jesus in John 17:26 comes true, all this will change. He prays to his Father about us, “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” God does not love the Son the way he loves sinners. He loves the Son because the Son is infinitely worthy of love. That is, he loves the Son because the Son is infinitely lovely. Which means that this love is totally pleasure. Jesus prays that this pleasure that God has in his Son will be the same pleasure we have in the Son.

If God’s pleasure in the Son becomes our pleasure, then the object of our pleasure, Jesus, will be inexhaustible in personal worth. He will never become boring or disappointing or frustrating. No greater treasure can be conceived than the Son of God.

But add to this what Jesus prays for; namely, that our ability — our energy, our passion — to savor this inexhaustible treasure will not be limited by human weaknesses. We will enjoy the Son of God with the very enjoyment of his omnipotent Father.

God’s delight in his Son will be in us and it will be ours. And this will never end, because neither the Father nor the Son ever ends. Their love for each other will be our love for them and therefore our loving them will never die.

John Piper 

Will America join the graveyard of nations?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“Jesus answered and said...if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.” Matthew 21:21

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

When a nation loses its ability to discern morality, it embarks on a slippery slope toward self-destruction, especially when it comes to basic sexual morality.

When a nation turns its back on the commands of God, He will say, “That’s the last step. I wash My hands. You asked for it. You got it.”

America is in crisis, and unless we have a moral rebirth, we will join the graveyard of the nations. The hour is late—it’s time to wake up. Time is passing—it’s time to look up. Jesus is coming—it’s time to sober up. Satan is working—it’s time to amour up. Mountains need moving—it’s time to pray up and pray some mountain-moving prayers.

ACTION POINT:

Ask the Lord to heal our land. Take inventory. What do you need to repent of in your own heart and life? God has said he takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:23). Rather than ask God to get rid of them, ask Him to forgive the iniquities of the wicked and bring salvation to their souls.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Good News: God Is Happy

. . . the gospel of the glory of the blessed God . . . (1 Timothy 1:11)

This is a beautiful phrase in 1 Timothy, buried beneath the too-familiar surface of Bible buzzwords. But after you dig it up, it sounds like this: “the good news of the glory of the happy God.” The word “blessed” is not the one that means “praised,” but the one that means “happy.”

A great part of God’s glory is his happiness.

It was inconceivable to the apostle Paul that God could be denied infinite joy and still be all-glorious. To be infinitely glorious was to be infinitely happy. He used the phrase, “the glory of the happy God,” because it is a glorious thing for God to be happy the way he is.

God’s glory consists much in the fact that he is happy beyond our wildest imagination. As the great eighteenth-century preacher, Jonathan Edwards, said, “Part of God’s fullness which he communicates is his happiness. This happiness consists in enjoying and rejoicing in himself; so does also the creature’s happiness.”

And this is a key part of the gospel, Paul says: “the gospel of the glory of the happy God.” It is good news that God is gloriously happy. No one would want to spend eternity with a gloomy, unhappy God.

If God is unhappy, then the goal of the gospel — to be with God forever — is not a happy goal, and that means it would be no gospel at all. But, in fact, Jesus invites us to spend eternity with a happy God when he says, “Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:23).

Jesus said in John 15:11, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” Jesus spoke, and lived, and died that his joy — God’s joy — might be in us and our joy might be full. Therefore the gospel is “the gospel of the glory of the happy God.”

John Piper 

How long can you live without your air supply?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God.” Colossians 3:1

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

First Peter 2:11 says we are aliens and strangers in this world. We are in the world, but  not of the world. We are twice-born folks in a world of once-born people, and we’re going to find ourselves going against the tide most of the time. We are citizens of another Kingdom.

It’s like a deep sea diver who is underwater and outside his natural environment. He could not live if he weren’t linked to his life supply above. That’s the way we need to live. If we are to survive, we must stay linked to Jesus who is our life.

The Bible says we’re not to set our affections on things beneath, but on things above where Christ sits at the right hand of the Father. (Colossians 3:1)

ACTION POINT:

It’s time to check your lifeline...are you trusting in anything in this world? Are you making friends with the things of this world?

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers