Author: debo

We are going to continue our joy filled summer, and resume talking about all the ways our joy level can brighten not only our day, but those around us as well. We want to live in the overflow or out of the abundance of our heart. Lots of people we know are running on empty, living totally without joy. Life isn’t just a struggle, it is overwhelming to them. As encouragers, we get to be the ones to lift them up, with a kind word, and smile on our face. I hope you can find someone to encourage today. Here is your dailyeword.

As we consider the journey to a full bucket of joy, I hope you have realized that as much as we want to be joy filled, God wants us to experience His joy more than we do. He wants our joy to be full and running over. God’s desire was fulfilled in sending His son to earth to pave the way for a relationship with us. My prayer during this joy journey is that you come to a place of wholeness, and experience life in with a whole heart . When our hearts are whole, then we can begin to live out of the overflow. John 7:37-38 says that streams of living water will flow from us, so our life becomes a conduit for God’s Spirit. The Bible talks about a river of life when we are filled with the Holy Spirit. Sounds like there is more than enough water to go around! No joy drought for the Christian, ever! What is so fabulous about water is that it cleanses, purifies and satisfied. So along with being essential for life, it effects can powerfully change our lives for the better. We are washed with the water of the Word, and we drink from the water of Life as we daily commune with God. There is more than enough joy flowing to us, that we have more than enough to flow through us. That is called living life in the overflow! It sounds like the joy filled life we desire with God is available in abundance.

Happy 4th of July! What a big party this weekend is for all Americans! So much of our nation’s history is founded by godly men and women, longing for freedom to worship God. From the original voyages across the ocean looking for a new world, the explorers were on a mission, to tell the new world about God. When the puritans came from England, they wanted freedom of worship. Not only was the new world a land of opportunity, it was a place where God could be worshipped freely. America’s founders were Godly men and women. America was founded on godly principles. We have strayed from that foundation, but thankfully, we still live in a country where we can worship God freely. 2 Cor 3:17 says that where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. We use that verse in our churches all the time. We can apply that to our country too. Where and when we let the Spirit of God reign, we will experience freedom. Let’s not forget the foundations and our humble beginnings. Let us not forget those who gave their lives for our freedom. Let us not forget to thank God, for men and women of courage, who bravely fought for our freedoms. Thank God we are free.

This weekend we celebrate the 4th of July, and how much we love our home land. Freedom is a wonderful privilege and living the good life we have available to us in America is a blessing indeed. Hi, this is Dorette Schaal with your dailyeword. This weekend, I want to encourage you to think of not only your patriotic freedom, but your spiritual freedom as well. We are free, that God almighty we are free! Here is your dailyeword.

One of the greatest joys in my life is worshipping God through music. I love to sing and play before the Lord and worship God in totally freedom. I can remember back so well at the time in my life when I was just beginning to walk into the understanding of living the Spirit-led, Spirit-controlled life. I can recall having the urge to lift my hands to the Lord but feeling very self-conscious about it. I was sitting next to a friend in a worship service and she must have known from the outside the struggle I had going on in the inside. She whispered in my ear…. “it really won’t hurt to lift your hands, and it will probably bring you more freedom than you’ve ever known.” She was right. I went from being totally self-conscious about worshipping God to total freedom and a greater consciousness of God than ever before. Simply breaking through something in the natural realm, moved me into a greater depth of freedom than I had ever experienced before. Now I love the freedom I have to worship God with all my might – and with my mind, soul and strength.

If you feel like your joy bucket level is set on low, it is good to remember that in God’s presence is where we find more of the joy of the Lord. Our joy level is a pretty obvious gauge of how much time we are spending in God’s presence. That may sound harsh, but if our joy is depleted, the best place for our joy to be renewed is worshipping God, being renewed in the Word and spending time in His presence. If your joy bucket is empty and you are grumpy and frustrated, take some time to do all of those things. If a joyful attitude is natural for you and you wake up happy, and stay joyful all throughout the day, your joy can rub off on people around you. If that is not you, and you are more like my husband, who needs a morning warm up and some happy juice, choosing joy can be a real testimony to the power of the Word dwelling inside of you, even when you naturally don’t feel like it. We can find real joy and contentment in Christ, and by hanging around with people who have experienced the joy of the Lord. Our desire should be to only want more of God and His presence, because we know that in His presence is fullness of joy. I want all the joy that God has for me. I know where I can find it. I want all the joy that God has for you. We find it in the presence of God, that’s where your joy cup can be full and overflowing.
Here is Psalms 23:1-3
The Lord is my shepherd;
 I shall not want.
He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside the still waters.
He restores my soul;
 He leads me in the paths of righteousness
 For His name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

Do you think your life is more joy filled today than it was when I started this series on joy? Even the most joyful person we know can experience more of the joy of the Lord, day after day. And for sure the most discouraged joyless person we know can begin to have joy that can continue to increase. I encourage you to memorize Phil 4:8. Think on these things, the thing that are lovely and are of a good report. Make it such a natural part of who you are that you begin to think differently and then speak and act differently as well. More joy is around the corner for you. Your fresh start can take place today. In God we can have a redo, because He is the God of second chances, and He wants you to succeed. Your set back may have just been your set up for your come back! If you feel like it is too hard, it isn’t. You have it in you. The God of the universe has taken up residence in your heart, and he is cheering you on. He is your cheerleader, your coach, your physician, your lawyer and your very present help in times of trouble. You can depend on Him, He will see you through, and on the other side is more joy filled living! Keep thinking on the things that lead to joy.

What you think about is who you become. As a person thinks, so is he or she. (Proverbs 23:7) What you concentrate on in your thought life will determine your path in life. Persistent thoughts lead to action. Paul encourages us in II Corinthians 10:4-6, to take every thought captive. Lock it up, corral it, rope it and tie it down. Make your thought life obedient to Christ. We are the ones who have to do that. We can’t ask God to renew our minds or to control our thought life. That is what He told us to do. The encouraging thing about that scripture is that if God tells us to do it, we have the ability to make it happen. He wouldn’t tell us to do something that only He could do. It is up to us. Tommy Newberry says this…. “thinking, talking and worrying about what you don’t want can never bring you what you do want”. James tells us the same thing a different way. A double minded man will never receive anything from God. WOW! You can’t think something over and over and have the opposite thing come to pass. Flip flopping from the good to the bad in your thought life doesn’t produce good results. That’s where there hard word discipline comes in. Amazing that the word disciple and discipline are so similar. Let’s be Christ’s disciplined disciples!

Are you easily distracted? I know with me, it takes very little to lose focus. Sometimes just having someone else talking in another conversation near to where I am can totally be distracting. I have to consciously focus on the conversation I am involved in. What is the best way to keep focused? Sometimes it means putting your focus directly on what you need to concentrate on. When it comes to focusing on God, the Bible tells us to look at Him, to listen to Him, and pay attention to His Word. When we do that we can keep our focus right. You can try that as an experiment and see how it really works. Put something on the table, about the size of a domino, and then focus just on it. In a short period of time, everything else around will get blurry, but you will see the object perfectly. When we keep our eyes on Jesus, things around us don’t get blurry, but they don’t have the hold on us that they used to. That is a good thing. We don’t have to let circumstances or situations keep us from focusing on God and his good plan for our lives. In the midst of any situation, we can keep our heart centered on God, and operate in the joy of the Lord, and praise Him through any storm or situation that comes against us. So keep your focus! Don’t lose sight of Jesus.

Your thought life is something that you can control, and it has a dramatic affect on every other area of your life. God’s desire is that your thought life becomes intentional and focused. We re going to delve into the topic of renewing your mind to think the way God wants us to think. We know that God sees and knows all, and we don’t, but we can begin to imitate the way God does things, and make it a part of our life. That is right out of Eph 5:1 where it says for us to be imitators of God as His dear children. We can think like God thinks, and act like He acts. We are called to be his hands and feet in this world, and we should be a good representative of Him. We should only do what we see our Father do, and say what we hear our Father say, but we should think like our Father would think. Consider this key thought, that every areas of your life is touched by your thoughts. What you think about is what you talk about, and what you talk about is what you do, and what you do comes right around to reveal what you are thinking about. It can be a vicious circle, or it can be a circle of blessing. Let’s start moving toward blessing! We do that as we begin thinking like God thinks, talking like God would talk, and doing what God would do. Be encouraged today! Positive change is in your future!

There are probably some days when we take for granted all the good things in our life. Hi, this is Dorette Schaal with your dailyeword. I’ve done it, and I’m pretty sure you have too. Each day we are given opportunities to choose joy, or to be grumpy; to live with a contented heart, or to live in envy and desire someone else’s life. Every highlight reel has a blooper reel too. If all you see are the highlights, you forget that everyone is facing some kind of battle. Remember that life is a wonderful beautiful ride, even on your hard days. Here is your dailyeword.

One thing that kids do naturally that we as adults can learn from, is to enjoy even the small things. There is so much that we have seen and done that we can kind of yawn at simple things, instead of jump for joy and be glad like a child! But we need kids around us to re-teach us this lesson. Life is wonderful! Jesus came to give us life to the full, overflowing and abundantly. Even with bumps along the way, life can be a wonderful, beautiful ride. That doesn’t erase the fact that bad things can happen to good people, because we do live in a fallen world. We need to remember that we are richly blessed – just even by where we live. We have so many opportunities that many people around the world never get to experience. Probably all of you had clean water to drink, and will eat 3 meals plus snacks today; that’s something to be glad about. We probably had a soft bed to sleep on, computer access to all that we desire to be connected to, and someone to love you. Those are great things to be thankful for. So instead of thinking about all the things you don’t have, or wish you could have, being content is saying, I’m thankful for the place I am in right now. That’s a great place to be! Keep getting excited about little things, and always be content in the joy of the moment.

Sometimes it is encouraging to look back and remember what it felt like to be a preschooler. They live life filled with joy and have life pretty well figured out. From the eyes of a preschooler, life is pretty simple! Here are some things they know from the perspective of a 4 year old:
God is Good (I Peter 2:3), the devil is bad (evil).

God gives life, the devil comes to take life.(John 10:10)
Just because stuff happens doesn’t mean it is God’s will. (We can’t blame God for things He doesn’t do)
God doesn’t hurt people, He helps them!
God can take the bad the devil tried to do, and makes it good. (The devil looses at his own game and is the biggest loser of them all.
Jesus makes you happy, the devil makes you sad.
Sounds simple to me! In Matt 6:9-13 The Lord’s Prayer, Jesus makes it very clear that he wants the earth to experience a little bit of heaven…. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That sounds like joy unspeakable! You probably have the Lord’s Prayer memorized, if not, here it is.

Our Father, who art in heaven, Holy is your Name, Your Kingdom Come, Your Will be Done, On earth, As it is. In Heaven, Give us this Day, Our daily bread, And Forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors, Lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil, For Yours is the Kingdom, And the Power and the Glory, Forever, Amen!
Let’s remember to keep things simple. Let’s be a taste of heaven to the people around us. Be a doer of the Word, and a believer who believes the Word. Live in the joy of the Lord. As complex as life can be, let’s try to make life simple. Seal everything with one of those slobbery preschool kisses! KISS…..that’s an acronym for Keep It Simple Sweetie! And let’s enjoy life with a little glimmer of heaven right here on this earth, living in the joy of the Lord!