All my life I have wanted to be happy. What a surprise! God did not ask me to deny my desire for happiness; He asked me to allow Him to fulfill it.
To paraphrase John Piper, "Our problem is not that we go too hard after pleasure, our problem is that we settle for too little. God would give us a magnificent view of the Himalayas, and we have been content to go to the garage and sit on folding chairs and look at slides of Buck Hill. God would give us a magnificent feast at His banqueting table, and we have been content with leftovers.
I currently do conferences in about fifty cities a year all across the United States. I train Sunday School teachers on how to double a class every two years or less. I talk to them about strategies they can use to grow their classes. After doing this for a few years and talking to hundreds of churches, I come away with a realization that strategies and methods are not the problem. The problem, in most cases, is that we do not enjoy God. We are bored with God, mad at the personnel committee, distracted by many things, or just plain numb. A lot of churches are a bit sleepy.
Enjoying God offers a simple, six step process to finding consistent joy in God:
Learn to live the well-lived life.
Express your joy in God in worship.
Attack the enemy.
Do the things God has called you to do.
Express your joy in God to others.
Relate to others in healthy relationships.
The book, conference, and video (in production) is based on these six steps. Order your copy today from www.youcandouble.com
Let's close with some summary questions on relationships.
1. You might follow up from last week by asking if anyone has read the Proverb of the week. This lite accountability is important to the disciple making process. People have good intentions. We serve them well by reminding them that there are thirty one chapters of Proverbs. This makes a nice daily reading plan to read one chapter a day that corresponds to the day of the month.
2. This is a point of common misunderstanding with believers. Many will say, all sins are a like. This is true in the sense that any sin will separate us from God. However, I would rather you gossip about me than kill me. In this sense, gossip is not as bad as murder.
3. Much of it has to do with motive. If my intent is to destroy someone with agreement, that is quarreling. If I just don't care whether I destroy someone with my words, that is sin too. There must be a place, however, for the honest exchange of ideas and feelings. To some, "Don't argue," means, "Get in line with my opinion."
4. Perhaps the biggest step is admitting. Most people who are quarrelsome don't realize it or won't admit it. Being quarrelsome comes from something deep within. It is rooted in an unresolved bitterness or anger. We must resolve the "root of bitterness." Counting to ten simply puts a patch on an old tire. What we need is new tires.
5. Put them on one side of the board; we will put the positive opposites on the other side.
6. And so on with all these verses.
7. Here are some answers that are not right: try hard and just do better. If we could try hard and do better, we wouldn't need the cross. Another answer that is not quite right is, "Let go and let God." Total passivity is not right either. Walking by faith is both a trusting dynamic and a doing dynamic. The goal of all of teaching is to provide a clear answer to this question.
8. I Corinthians 5:11- 13 But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. "Expel the wicked man from among you."
9. One of the top predictors of your usefulness to God is your people skills.