The Joy Rebellion

Do everything without grumbling and arguing, so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God.

Phillipians 2:14-15

Today's devotional talks about being joyful when life is good, and when life is not so good. My devotional says that grumbling, doing what I want to do without seeking God first, losing heart when life gets a little tough, are all things we do when we rebel against God's will. It talks about how joy is much deeper than happiness, because happiness is based on whether life is going good. Happiness and joy come easily during the good times.

My devotional goes further into depth on this, but the bottom line is I have to choose to be joyful. The title of the devotional explains it all. My heart often chooses to rebel against joy, when things aren't going so good in my life. This, for me, goes along with what I talked about yesterday. I have to thwart my heart's rebellion against joy, and choose not to take the jab at someone whom I don't like very much. I am learning to try and see the person. Try to see their situation, and what may be going on in their lives to. God loves them to. Jesus didn't just die for me and the people I like, He didn't just die for the good people. He died for ALL people. Sometimes that's hard to accept, I know I feel like other's don't deserve it, but the truth is, I don't deserve it. God asks so very little from me, and my heart chooses to rebel.

Trusting is sometimes hard, but that's why it's called faith. I know God is in control, but sometimes the control freak in me comes out, and I decide that I know a better way, and I need to take the controls back. Then my life gets way off track, and I sit and wonder why. I finally give the controls back to God, get my life back on the right track, only to repeat the whole process all over again. To coin one my friends phrases, "I am just a stupid Isrealite!" I suppose I deserve the desert that I wander in for 40 years, if I keep trying to tell the God of the universe how to do His job!! But from now on, I am going to choose to be joyful in the wilderness.

Steps of Faith:
Lord, I confess that when life gets hard, sometimes I grumble. Please help me to remember that what I'm going through is temporary and that You are bigger than my problems.

Deeper Walk:
Hebrews 12:1-12 NAS
Jesus, the Example

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, "MY SON, DO NOT REGARD LIGHTLY THE DISCIPLINE OF THE LORD, NOR FAINT WHEN YOU ARE REPROVED BY HIM; FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES." It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble.