Joy

Gen 1:4 And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness.

Once upon a time I said that I did not ever want to be a Christian because they had all of these things they were not allowed to do and my perception of the Christian was that they were a sad lot! Add to this that the God of the Christian was such a God of wrath that, surely, no God follower could possibly, ever, be happy. And yet I spent the better part of my first forty-five years drunk. The alcohol was the only thing that gave me any peace, so I drank!

The night that I was saved I had no means of transportation but a bicycle with two bald tires and it was a normal wet and cold Winter in Houston that year and being a Driver I would ride in the rain to work as well as ride in the rain that night to get home. I was living my life at the Club, playing my guitar and singing Country music... I was not a happy man but rather, happiness was all I searched for. I was stuck with the memories and the nightmares of close combat support in Vietnam and from that I had been placed on the Dung Heap by all three of the women I had married up to that time.

I knew that God had called me to follow Him in November of ´67 but each time I would pick up my little Silver Leather King James, nothing that made sense to me would leap out of the pages and yet the people on the TV kept saying that the Bible was the Living Word of God... it just didn´t make sense! But as I sang in the New Year of 1990, this man danced his wife past the stage and looking for his usual opportunity to fight for her, he flipped me off. Any night before that night, I would have dragged him out to the Parking Lot but on this night, at just that time, I had been overcome with the Holy Spirit and I finished the Number, picked up my equipment and had a young lady drive me to my apartment and made her very mad because I would not allow her to come in for the night.

That night, I had refrained from drinking and for some reason had not even purchased my usual quart of 101 Wild Turkey, I was stone cold sober and just as pleased with my situation as a Lark! I felt great joy and peace for the very first time in my life! I sat down on my bed, just short of one in the morning, I seem to recall, and as I read my Bible, it made perfect sense to me, it was crystal clear for the first time in my life. From December 31. 1989 until this day I have not had so much as a sip of any hard drink and I have been happy and full of the Joy of the LORD from that midnight until now.

Much of my teaching is not seen as joyful by the Lost Man but I tell you the truth, just as our LORD found joy in His creation, we also can be filled with His joy every day. My prayer for today is that each of you will try it if you haven already. Some of you have already yielded your lives to the Spirit but many have not and I´m asking you to stop playing church and to become the Church!

May God bless.