...SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM NOON TODAY TO 6 AM EST SATURDAY... * WHAT...North winds 15 to 25 kt and choppy waters expected. * WHERE...Albemarle, Croatan, and Roanoke Sounds and the Alligator River. * WHEN...From noon today to 6 AM EST Saturday. * IMPACTS...Conditions will be hazardous to small craft. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... Inexperienced mariners, especially those operating smaller vessels, should avoid navigating in hazardous conditions. &&
emmett
Murphy
Photo courtesy Emmett Murphy
emmett
Murphy
Photo courtesy Emmett Murphy
emmett
Murphy
Photo courtesy Emmett Murphy“Rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near.” Philippians 4:4-5
If someone walked into your life and gave you $50 million and 50 more years of life with 100% good health and energy, how would you respond to them? You would be ecstatic!
Would you hug and kiss them? Would you cry?
You have basically just gained a second adult lifetime with all of the resources you would ever need to bless others. All the time you would ever need to spend with family and friends.
You couldn’t say thank you enough. You would feel indebted to them because they had changed your life radically.
Do you realize that the Lord has done just that?
How do you respond to God who has given you the most beautiful gifts He could possible give?
He has given you citizenship in heaven forever with Him where all of your needs will be supplied in abundance.
He is making us ready to meet Jesus our Savior face to face.
He will transform our broken bodies into a perfect sanctified body that will live forever with no pain, no sickness and no death.
How do you respond to that kind of goodness and greatness?
How do you, as a Christian, respond to a great God who has made you His own despite your flaws and failure? Who invites you to be close to Him, the make of the universe, to know Him?
How do you respond to a God who loves you unconditionally and wants you to be with Him in heaven forever?
His command is that we rejoice in goodness. “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say, rejoice.”
The root word of rejoice is joy. To rejoice is to engage your soul in happy celebration. When we rejoice in God’s goodness we make the choice to stop, think, feel and celebrate God’s goodness.
There is no true joy apart from Jesus Christ. The hymn writer stated, “If you want joy, real joy, wonderful joy, let Jesus come into your heart.”
When do we rejoice? Paul tells us in verse 4 of Philippians 4, “always.” How? By rejoicing “in the Lord.”
We can rejoice in the Lord even when we can’t rejoice in other things. James 1:2-3 tells us, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.”
We don’t just rejoice or “consider it all joy” when life is sweet and good. We can rejoice in the Lord because God is always faithful. He is full of love and grace and mercy and always there for us.
Habakkuk 3:17-18 tells us, “Though the fig tree should not blossom and there be no fruit on the vines, though the yield of the olive should fail and the fields produce no food, though the flock should be cut off from the fold and there be no cattle in the stalls, yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.”
Why do we rejoice? We rejoice because of the hope that awaits us. The Bible tells us that Jesus could endure the suffering of the cross because of the joy that awaited Him. He knew that He would soon experience the joy of His Father’s presence.
There is so much negativity and misery in the world. But it makes no difference if Jesus Christ is our Savior and there is hope on the other side. He said, “Let not your heart be troubled, you believe in God, believe in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.”
As long as God is on the throne we have reason to rejoice always.
Emmett Murphy is a retired Christian church minister. He can be reached at epreach@aol.com.
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