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****THOUGHT FOR THE DAY****
If we can convince people that we are onto something that's full of joy, they'll stampede one another to follow us.
-- William Treadwell, Leadership, Vol. 1, no. 3.
GOOD FELLOWSHIP (3‑4). God's people are not perfect, but we should delight in their fellowship and not in the fellowship of the world's crowd (2 Cor. 6:14‑18). The world needs our witness, BUT WE MUST TAKE CARE NOT TO START LOVING THE WORLD (1 John 2:15‑17).
GOOD HERITAGE (5‑6). Not just God's gifts, but God Himself! What a joy it is to let GOD CHOOSE YOUR INHERITANCE FOR YOU instead of acting like the world and fighting for your "place in the sun."
GOOD COUNSEL (7‑8). God gives wisdom if you will ask Him (James 1:5). God teaches you in the darkness as well as in the light. These verses are summarized in Matthew 6:33.
GOOD HOPE (9‑11). This passage is one of the few in the Old Testament dealing with resurrection. It refers to the resurrection of Christ (Acts 2:22‑32), and THAT IS WHAT GIVES US OUR HOPE (1 PET. 1:3).
With the Word - Warren W. Wiersbe
Thomas Nelson Publishers
Nashville
“Used by permission of Thomas Nelson, Inc.”
THE REAL SOURCE OF HAPPINESS
Yesterday, on The Today Show, they had a little excerpt, and on Dateline on NBC, they had an expose of the happiness industry. These are people who, for a fee, of course, will help you be happy. One of them was an ad man who left his advertising business and started something in New England called the Options Institute.
"I would like to be your happiness coach," he says to Maria Shriver. "I can teach people how to be happy. They just have to make a decision not to take on all the crap that the world gives them, and they have to decide to be happy."
Would that it were that easy. Wouldn't that be wonderful? No, we don't manufacture our happiness. We are the people with joy that is God-given. The only reason I'm not a candidate for suicide, the only reason I can put my feet on the floor in the morning, is because God's joy, God's person, God's character is in me. It gives me a reason to face life. I worship him with gladness because I'm his.
¨ Richard Allen Farmer, "The 'What's' and the 'Why' of Worship," (PSALMS 16:11)*
(Psa 16 NIV) . Keep me safe, O God, for in you I take refuge. {2} I said to the LORD, "You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing." {3} As for the saints who are in the land, they are the glorious ones in whom is all my delight. {4} The sorrows of those will increase who run after other gods. I will not pour out their libations of blood or take up their names on my lips. {5} LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. {6} The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance. {7} I will praise the LORD, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. {8} I have set the LORD always before me. BECAUSE HE IS AT MY RIGHT HAND, I will not be shaken. {9} Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, {10} because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. {11} YOU HAVE MADE KNOWN TO ME THE PATH OF LIFE; YOU WILL FILL ME WITH JOY IN YOUR PRESENCE, WITH ETERNAL PLEASURES AT YOUR RIGHT HAND.*
