[Faith-talk] Daily Thought for Tuesday, August 20, 2013

[Paul]

Hello and good day to all of you.  I hope that your day is going well, went well or, as this is being written for you in Australia and New Zealand, that your Wednesday will go well.

Rebecca MacKenzie is a writer from Wisconsin, and she today presents us with an article entitled "The Pursuit of J.O.Y.," rendered as follows:

"Would you stop looking on the bright side!" my husband Ken snapped at me in response to my reassuring words.  He slammed the door behind him and stomped off our property.  While my words of encouragement had served only to intensify his misery, his angry retort took me by surprise.  I involuntarily burst out laughing, but the slammed door spared me the knowledge of that.

Like fire and gasoline, Ken's negativity and my optimism can be a volatile mix.  Yet, we have been married for more than a quarter of a century.  The occasional eruptions and some long periods of unrest we have withstood are offset by the joy we share.  God gets the glory in that for gracing each of us with the need for the other's disposition.  While my "Little Miss Sunshine" often grates on Ken, his "eeyore" is buoyed by it.  And, Ken's pragmatism protects me from my own naivete.

God doesn't only grace spouses with needed balance.  Our friendships and other personal relationships, and even our day-to-day interactions benefit by God working all things for good (Rom. 8:28).  Everyone occasionally gets frustrated in trying to make personal relationships work, and even fleeting encounters with rude individuals can challenge our attitude.  In order to keep the joy in our relationships and social interactions, it's important we maintain the proper focus.



Jesus
Jesus, "the pioneer and perfecter of our faith" (Heb. 12:2), understood perfect focus.  If we become tangled in self-pity, bitterness, anger, or fear, it would be wise for us to remember the sufferings of Jesus.  With full knowledge of the physical anguish he would endure for our salvation, He willingly became like us.  His focus never deviated from the will of His Father.  Despite the torture of His flesh (Matt. 27:26), even despite seemingly being abandoned by His father (Matt. 27:46), Jesus' focus was constant, and He endured "for the joy... set before Him" (Heb 12:2).  Jesus must be our primary focus in our pursuit of joy for He is the embodiment of constancy in trials.



Others
Jesus directs our focus toward others.  He clearly states, "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments" (John 14:15).  We know His commands from reading God's Word and two of them are particularly encompassing:  "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind" (Matt. 22:37), and "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Matt. 22:39).  While the first confirms our primary focus, the second summarizes the remaining components of joy.

Moreover, Jesus says, "This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you" (John 15:12).  Jesus tells us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us (Matt. 5:44).  He illustrated this with the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:1:26) and from the cross (Luke 23:34).  By focusing first on Jesus, we are able to imitate His focus on others.  Seeing people through the eyes of Jesus changes our perception and can enable us to draw closer to joy.



Yourself
Accomplishing the proper focus on ourselves is addressed in Philippians 2:3-4, "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.  Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others."

How, then, do we love ourselves (Matt. 22:39) if we elevate others above us? Mimicking God's perfect love makes it possible for us to focus on our self-love subordinately and, thereby, to love others in humility.  This is explained in the remainder of the Philippians passage (v5:8):  "Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.  And being found in human form, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death--even death on a cross."

When the trials of life chip away at us, we are to be obedient as Jesus was obedient.  Don't give up; we are renewed daily.  "So we do not lose heart.  Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day" (2 Cor. 4:16).  If our mindset is to mirror that of Christ, our humility and obedience must approximate His.  Then it is not only possible to focus on ourselves appropriately, but that focus is also an indispensible component in the pursuit of joy.

And there you have it for today.  For further study on this topic, read (or listen, as the case may be) to Joyce Meier's book "Seven Things That Steal Your Joy," in audio form from NLS and, as an extra added feature, it's read by Joyce herself.

And now may the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob just keep us safe, individually and collectively, throughout these last days in which we live.  Your Christian friend and brother, Paul