Looking For Joy: In All The Right Places

These things have I spoken unto you, 

that My joy might remain in you, and that your 

joy might be full. This is My commandment, 

That ye love one another, as I have loved you. 

Greater love hath no man than this, that a may

 lay down his life for his friends. Ye are My friends, 

if ye do whatsoever I command you.

John 15:11-14

     Do you want joy in your life? Where have you, or what are you doing to get that joy? Are you, as the song goes: "looking for joy (love) in all the wrong places? The culture of this world has a way for a person to find joy and that joy is most often in contradiction to what Jesus spoke to us as how to find a joy that is full. Here is where things get real hard: if you want joy, a real true joy, one that fills your life; then you must do whatever Jesus has commanded. PERIOD! The words of Jesus are harsh, at least to ears that will not hear. The words of Jesus are hard, at least to our fallen nature. Yet, the words of Jesus are loving and have only the best for anyone who will hear and obey His commands. Jesus did not tell you to come to Him and to receive the confidence of men by minimizing the load which He offered to bear. Jesus did not give you the words that is offered by those liberal Churches, no, for Jesus did not say to you: "Trust Me to give you acceptance with God, because acceptance with God is not difficult; God does not regard sin so seriously after all."

     Jesus presented to us the wrath of God in such an awful way, more than what even the apostles presented. The liberal Christian represent Jesus as a mild-mannered, even like a cuddly teddy bear, with indiscriminating: Really? No, it was Jesus who give to us of an outer place of utter darkness, a place where there is an everlasting fire, and that sin shall not be forgiven in this world or the world to come. Those words may not evoke trust in God, not to one who will not hear, not listen to those words of that bring joy. How can those words bring trust, those awful sounding words of death? Those words will lead us to despair. Well that may be true but you can find trust in God, in His words, those words of Jesus. How? Trust arises only when we attend to God's way of salvation. And what is that way? That way is found in Jesus. Jesus did not come to give you trust by minimizing the presentation of what was necessary in order that sinners might stand faultless before the awful throne of God. Awful throne? Yes! It is at the throne of God we will answer to Him for all we have said and done in this life: "And I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire" (Revelation 20:11-15). Is this not an awful sight, and awful presentation of God? Yes! Jesus did not minimize the wrath of God in order to invite you to come to Him and find the way, the joy of God and this He did by presenting the wondrous Person: Jesus Christ. Jesus showed us not only the wrath of God, and the guilt of our sin, how large is that guilt, but showed us that He was still greater than all our sin. Jesus showed us the love of the Father; but not a Father loved the sin of the world, but those whom He Himself had brought into His Kingdom through His Son. 

    Jesus is the object of our faith, this is taught to us in the New Testament. Jesus is the unitary witness. This cannot be removed by any critical process: as this was accepted by the early Church and only has been removed in those liberal Churches: they teach a gospel that is not the Gospel. Jesus was not mere teacher of righteousness, no pioneer for a new religion, or a religious life, rather as One who was then, and should be now, regarded as He regarded Himself: the Savior whom men could trust. 

    Liberal Christianity regards Jesus in a different way? How is that? Authentic Christians stand in a religious relation to Jesus. Liberal Christians do not stand in a religious relation to Jesus. What do I mean? Liberal preachers reverences Jesus and has the name of Jesus on his lips, and speaks of Jesus as the Supreme God: and attempts to enter, or tries to enter into a religious life of Jesus. Sounds good?? Here is the problem: A liberal preacher, or person for that matter, does not stand in a religious relation to Jesus for and Jesus for Him is and example for faith, not the object of faith. A liberal Christian tries to have faith in God, like the faith of an Authentic Christian, and to have a faith in which he supposes Jesus had in God, but he does not have faith in Jesus. 

     Liberalism, therefore, say that Jesus was the Founder of Christianity because He was the first Christian, and Christianity consists in maintenance of the religious life which Jesus instituted.

     Question: Was Jesus really a Christian? Another question: are we able, or ought we, as Christians to enter in every respect into the experience of Jesus and make Him in every respect our example? Well we will find difficulties that arise to these questions and I will attempt to answer them in the next blogs.

Therefore I will look unto the LORD;

    I will wait for the God of my

salvation: for my God will hear me.

                  Micah 7:7

You can find real joy

Richard L. Crumb