POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – Smile! God IS With You

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It’s good to laugh in church. If you can’t laugh in church where can you laugh?

Christianity is a religion of joy, and in that context I have a few things to share with you. I have a new somewhat modified version of 23rd Psalm to share with you today dealing with diets:

My appetite is my shepherd; I always want.
It maketh me sit down and stuff myself.
It leadeth me to my refrigerator repeatedly.
It leadeth me in the path of Burger King for a Whopper.
It destroyeth my shape.

Yea, though I knoweth I gaineth I will not stop eating
For the food tasteth so good.
The ice cream and the cookies they comfort me.
When the table is spread before me, it exciteth me.
For I knoweth that I sooneth shall dig in.
As I filleth my plate continuously,
My clothes runneth smaller.
Surely bulges and pudgies shall follow me all the days of my life.
And I shall be “pleasingly plump” forever.

Let share of story of Mrs. Monroe. She lives in Darlington, Maryland. She is a mother of eight children, and except for a few interesting experiences, she is like many other mothers across America.

She came home, one afternoon, from the grocery store, walked into her home, and everything looked pretty much the same, though it was a little bit quieter than usual. She looked in the middle of the living room and five of her darlings were sitting around in a circle, exceedingly quiet, doing something with something in the middle of the circle. So she put down the sacks of groceries, walked over, closely looked, and saw they were playing with five of the cutest skunks you can imagine.

She was instantly terrified, and she said, “Run, children, run!” Each child grabbed a skunk, and they ran in five different directions. She was beside herself and she screamed even louder, more frantically, and with great gusto. It so scared the children that each one squeezed his skunk! As the mother wrote me, “Skunks don’t like to be squeezed.”

I saw a sign the other day that said, “God put me on earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now, I am so far behind, I will never die.”

Maybe you feel that way, today. Maybe you feel that some things are temporarily out of your control as hard as you try. God can help manage your life and help you every minute of the day and night. God can bring your life into a wonderful Divine Order.

God has a plan for your life and for my life. It is a Divine appointment that you are here and that I am here, this morning, to hear these words. These words are for everyone whose get-up-and-go has got-up-and-gone.

When your smile has turned to a frown, and it is time to turn to God. We get tired often when life has become a hard climb. We have found that is a little bit tougher than to we had imagined. We wonder how in the world we will get over the next hurdle.

It is time to turn to God. When we do, we find out the truth that God is at hand, and we find that new strength is at hand. The truth is that your life can be great.

God is life, and God is the giver of life. We can, again, become engaged and excited about our lives, today. We can become excited about connecting with God.

The deeper the prayer in your life, the deeper the inspiration and the finer the ideas.

We are positive faith-filled people.

We choose to be. No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, sailed to an uncharted land, or opened up a new heaven to the human spirit. To do all that we need to do, we have to say, “Yes.” We have to say, “I’m ready; I’m willing; and I’m very excited about what is happening.”

Diane Ackerman once said, “I don’t want to be a passenger in my own life.”

You don’t, either. You want to be fully engaged in experiencing and enjoying. You want to be a VIP, a Very Involved Person. A person who is totally engaged and in the enjoyment of God’s blessings. Take yourself out of neutral in all the areas of our lives, and become engaged in the enjoyment, the spirituality, and the fun or our lives.

Hostile-looking tribesmen in a South American jungle suddenly surrounded a missionary. Noting their posed spears and poisoned arrows, the missionaries knew they had to think of something and think of it, quickly. At that moment a plane flew overhead, and he said, “See that bird up there? That is my friend. If you hurt us, it will kill you.”

The chief took one glance into the sky and then answered, “That’s no bird; that is a Boeing 747.”

Sometimes life takes surprising turns, in the moment of the surprise – we must call upon Divine help.

The survival of the fittest drama – not by hiding behind a shell because things in life have become unpredictable. I believe it is grasping life, riding the waves of life, and enjoying our moments.

Bruce Larson tells a story of an old woman who died in a nursing home. She left nothing of monetary value, but after she died, this was found in her possessions. It talks so richly about the life that is inside of the human being that I want to share it with you, this morning.

What do you see, nurses, what do you see?
What are you thinking when you’re looking at me?
A crabby old woman, not very wise,
Uncertain of habit, with faraway eyes?
Who dribbles her food and makes no reply
When you say in a loud voice, “I do wish you’d try!”

Who seems not to notice the things that you do,
And forever is losing a stocking or shoe … ..
Who, resisting or not, lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding, the long day to fill … .

Is that what you’re thinking?
Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse; you’re not looking at me.
I’ll tell you who I am as I sit here so still,
As I do at your bidding, as I eat at your will.
I’m a small child of ten, with a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters, who love one another.
A young girl of sixteen, with wings on her feet,
Dreaming that soon now a lover she’ll meet.
A bride soon at twenty — my heart gives a leap,
Remembering the vows that I promised to keep.

At twenty-five now, I have young of my own,
Who need me to guide and a secure happy home.
A woman of thirty, my young now grown fast,
Bound to each other with ties that should last.
At forty, my young sons have grown and are gone,
But my man’s beside me to see I don’t mourn.
At fifty, once more, babies play round my knee,
Again we know children, my loved one and me.

Dark days are upon me, my husband is dead;
I look at the future, I shudder with dread.
For my young are all rearing young of their own,
And I think of the years and the love that I’ve known.

I’m now an old woman … and nature is cruel;
‘Tis jest to make old age look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles, grace and vigor depart,
There is now a stone where I once had a heart.

But inside this old carcass a young girl still dwells,

And now and again my battered heart swells.
I remember the joys, I remember the pain,
And I’m loving and living life over again.
I think of the years … all too few, gone too fast,
And accept the stark fact that nothing can last.
So open your eyes, nurses, open and see,
Not a crabby old woman; look closer … see ME!!

What do you see when you look into the mirror? Do you see someone who is made up of the sum total of his, or her problems? Do you see someone who, for some reason or another, in some areas of his or her life, puts himself or herself into neutral and hides for protection?

I’m going to give you a secret and a key. Commitment to life turns the weights into wings! It allows you to fly over former problems that used to hold you down, and allows you to take hold of a new day.

Oprah Winfrey says, “Every day is a kick.” I agree.

Author Eric Butterworth loves to tell this story of a rooster. This rooster crowed with vigor every moment at sunrise. He actually thought that his crowing caused the sun to rise. It gave him a sense of significance. His life mattered.

One morning, he overslept. He opened his eyes, rushed to his post atop the hen house only to find that the sun had already risen without him. His dream world collapsed as he realized his self-delusion.

Then, to his mind came a great thought, equal to the wisdom of a sage. He said to himself, “It may not be that my crowing causes the sun to rise. But I can still awake to celebrate its rising.”

When is the last time you celebrated the morning, celebrated life? Life is so rich; the most valuable thing you have in your entire life is this day, this 24-hour period. There is nothing richer.

The most precious commodity in our world is not gold – it is time. Live your life not by the gold standard but by the time standard.

I have, right here, a glass of water. This water just wants to be water. It does not care if it is used for washing, swimming in, sailing on. I could boil it, freeze it, mix it, brew it, and the water is happy. It does not complain in any way.

But now, I present to you my other example. Here is a human being. Unlike water, it cares a lot what happens to it. The human being craves peace of mind. Many in this form, live lives of, “if only.” If only, I had this, then I could be happy. Many of us live lives of acquisition, trying to acquire more money, relationships, or things.

Today, in this place, let us anchor our lives in the joy of the satisfaction of who we are, and that we have this time to spend together. To have lives that see God everywhere we look during these 24 hours. To have lives that seek an acquisition of experiencing more of God, the sacred presence within you, and all of us here, this morning. To live lives from this higher perspective, to reorganize our priorities, and to put God first. When we do, we will be less and less likely to veer off course.

QUESTION – which one is the rich man: a Watusi tribesman, who owns ten cows, has the love of his family, the respect of his tribe, and a smile on his face? Or the multimillionaire, who is alienated from his family, emotionally burned out, and cannot remember when he last relaxed and was not in a frenzy of getting and spending?

Which of these describes the good life to you: a large stock portfolio? Six-figure salary? Winning the lottery? A sizable inheritance? Or a sense of satisfaction and well-being? This seems to be a loaded question, but do not misunderstand me. There is nothing wrong with money and possessions. God has created a lavish universe for us to enjoy.

We are meant to spiritually have more. Our souls are meant to enjoy life and we are meant to allow our spiritual energy to overflow with joy. That is what life is about. Wealth, in of and itself, does not guarantee happiness.

How successful are you in life?

Today, judge your lives by the amount of joy you inject into each and every moment of the day, these 24 hours are to be enjoyed – they are a gift from God.

In hospitals, you see video monitors above the beds. The sound goes beep, beep, beep, and a line shows on the screen that the person is alive. A flat liner is when the line goes straight across the screen. That shows that the person is dead.

But what about our souls? We don’t have video monitors for our souls

BUT there are many flat liners, today, who are walking around. They are just eating, sleeping, and working – just existing – putting in their time. They do not have any beeps in their lives.

They are real zombies. Being at the bedsides of many people who were dying, making their transitions, no one ever says, “I wish I could have worked more overtime.” It is quite the opposite.

Henry Ford once asked an associate who worked around him, “Son, what are your goals?”

The young man said, “Mr. Ford, I am going to make a million dollars.”

A few days later, Henry Ford gave the young man a special pair of glasses.

Where the lenses normally are, were two silver dollars. He said, “Put them on.” The young man put the glasses on. Henry Ford said, “What can you see?”

The young man said, “Mr. Ford, I can’t see anything.”

Henry Ford said, “Exactly, money is blinding your life. You have to take the glasses off, or you are going to miss a whole lot that you are supposed to see. You are going to be blind to greater opportunities that can come your way.”

Your will is shaping your future. Whether you fail or succeed shall be no human’s doing but your own. You are the force, but you are not the force alone. God IS with you.

You can clear any obstacle before you, or you can be lost in the maze. It is your choice, and your responsibility, win or lose. Only you and your sense of God hold your keys to the destiny you will have.

I want you to have this kind of destiny. Even when things go badly for you, you will still find life good and worth living, because you know you are connected to God.

Your soul has wings. When you have a sense of God, you will fly over former problems that used to bother you. Here is what I pray for you. I pray that the same circumstance or event that would have put you into a crisis mode a year ago will feel like just a minor speed bump now, because you know you are NOT alone.

If we have a jigsaw puzzle, we can pour it out on a table, and it is a chaotic heap of similar looking bits of displaced matter. There are no clues. We look at our lives, and they are the same way, but the truth is that each piece fits into the bigger picture. Life must be lived forward, but it can only be understood backward.

This is called “Life’s Weaving.” The author is unknown.

My life is but a weaving
Between my God and me;
I may not know the colors,
But God knows what they should be.
For God can view the pattern
Upon the upper side,
While I can see it only
On this, the under-side.

Sometimes God weaveth beyond my understanding,
Which seemeth strange to me;
But I will trust God’s judgment,
And work on faithfully;
‘Tis God who fills the shuttle,
God knows just what is best;
So I shall weave in earnest
And leave with God the rest.

At last, when life is ended,
With God shall I abide.
Then I may view the pattern
Upon the upper-side.
Then I shall know the reason
Why the new with the old entwined,
Was woven in the fabric
Of life that God designed.

Here are some rules for your life:

1. Your life is like a tapestry being woven by God and history on an enchanted loom. Every bobble of the shuttle has meaning. Every thread is important.

2. As a thread in the tapestry, every event in your life has some meaning and purpose for the larger pattern, even if you cannot see what it is in the moment.

3. You will discover the meaning more quickly if you direct your thoughts and focus your mind on God.

4. To aid in this, make a list of all the things you enjoy about your life. The simple pleasures: working with your hands, breathing fresh air, enjoying beautiful music.

5. When you are having dark times, sit down and write out stories: stories about your life past, when you were most enjoying yourself. Write down the meanings you now see in those stories. This will increase your faith and your confidence as you go through the present story that is now unfolding and that you cannot fully understand.

6. Ninety-four percent of us believe in God, according to a survey, but we need a larger concept of God, as we face new challenges in our lives. God is already large, but we have to make a larger concept of God in our own minds. We have old faith hanging in the closet. We need to take it out when we need it, dust it off, water it, and cause it to grow. We need to anchor our lives in a new, larger, increased faith.

7. Hard times come to a believer and a non-believer alike. But because God has promised to be with us, at all times, we CAN face even hard times in life. God is with you, and you remind yourself of this, over and over, again, during the day. God is our provider, strengthener, rescuer, and we seek that. When we seek that, we find it.

8. Consent to God in the moment, to new greater life, to new greater opportunity, by FIRST saying yes to God.

9. Imagine something with me. You are in your dining room, and you have a fine wooden table and chairs. You are sitting there at the table and you have just eaten dinner. You are smiling. You are sitting there.

You cross your legs, lean back, and all of a sudden, the back of the chair falls to the floor and breaks into smithereens. You think, “Oh no! This is the table my mother owned, and I loved this. How can this be?” You run down the street because, down the street, is a carpenter, the best in the city.

You say, “Please come to my house.” The carpenter arrives immediately, looks at the chair and says, “I’m sorry, it is beyond repair. But allow me to take it. I can make a stool out of this, and it will be better than you ever imagined.”

So the carpenter takes the chair and reshapes it into a stool. Not an ordinary stool, but he even puts in gold inlay and reshapes it into a family heirloom, a treasure, the most treasured thing in your entire home when you get it back.

That is the way it is with God. God comes instantly when we call. Maybe we have broken something into smithereens, and it cannot be repaired exactly as we would like it in our minds, but God is going to make something better out of it, if we give it to God, and if we are willing to allow that to occur.

Ephesians 4:17-24: “Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord: you must no longer live as the Gentiles live, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart. They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. That is not the way you learned Christ! For surely you have heard about Him and were taught in Him, as truth is in Jesus. You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

There are so many of us who dream that if only we had money enough to go away to a south sea island, have servants to wait on us, and sit there on the beach with a drink with a little umbrella in it, then life would be good. Recently, a writer had such an experience. He had dreamed all of his life about this wonderful, perfect life. He had the money, so he gave it all up and went away to a south sea island. The natives there were completely pleasant and friendly.

Day in and day out, he lived there on the beach. Within a very short period of time, he made a real discovery about life. He discovered that he was completely bored. He was going crazy in his boredom. Then he found an old American magazine in one of the huts. It was probably 15 years old. He looked through the pages and said, “These were stories about people who were engaged in their lives.” That is where the magic is. It is not to disengage yourself, BUT TO BECOME MORE ENGAGED.

I don’t know where you think the ideal place is. Maybe you think it is on the beach on a south sea island. Maybe you think it is a small town where there is no crime or urban problems. Maybe you think it is on top of a mountain somewhere, just praying to God. But it is not. Reality, rarely, lives up to the fantasy. You do not grow unless you are engaged with life. You do not experience life fully without growing.

“What is the use of having a long life,” wrote a medieval mystic, “if there is so little improvement to show for it.” Without growth, a long life would be an extended exercise in the trivial. IN fact, it may be worse. For some people, life is a long, weary trek, punctuated by seasons of anguish, and only occasionally broken up by brief moments of happiness.

Your life is not going to be that way. I want you to experience life every second, to be so aware of God in your life, this day, that it is the best day you have ever lived.

A bold goal must capture the hearts and minds of people who do the real work. When John F. Kennedy was President, and he announced to the United States that we would put a man on the moon, a janitor at NASA was interviewed one day, and he was asked to describe his job as he swept the debris from one of the workrooms.

The janitor said, “I am helping to put a man on the moon.”

We too, need a bold goal for our lives, and we all have a need to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. Perhaps you will allow me to give you a suggestion.

Today, make God real in your life by seeing as God, hearing as God, thinking as God, moving as God, and enjoying as God!

Let us pray.

Dear God, I commit to You first, and then to life. I will no longer disengage. I allow You and I to walk together, hand in hand, thought in thought, life in life, and to meet everything with victory, a smile, and happiness. And so it is.

In Jesus Christ’s name and nature. Amen.

God bless you!

PRAYER / MEDITATION____________________

This ministry is founded on awareness – the awareness of God in your life of faith. We come here to join in active communion, in oneness with God. As you rest in quiet and begin to empty yourself of worry, you begin to have an infilling – a transfusion in your awareness of the Divine perfection that is God.

We say “yes” to You, God, and with Your active help.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

God, You are spirited, enthusiastic, and joyous working in my life. There is nothing dull or vague about You. We ask now for a miraculous way of a Divine intervention, for You to take over, infill our human minds, and our human bodies.

Infill our souls with Your life.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

May God now fill you, and thrill you, through and through with joy, power, and vitality. May God’s presence with you be free flowing, cleansing you of all the emotional poison. May God-life come to every part of your mind and body, carried with new life moving within your body to your work, your play, and to meet your every need.

I decree, in Jesus Christ’s name, that the spirit of happiness is infilling you. It is pervading your entire being with deep delight. Everywhere you go there is a Spirit of God, a Spirit of gladness, a Spirit of praise and thanksgiving, and Divine radiation with you.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

God is buoyant in you. There is nothing outside of God that can have power over God’s love in you. There is nothing that can come to you outside of you that can harm your peace of mind, because that Power that is within you, living and breathing and having life in you, as you, is all.

You have eternal life in every moment of your life. Your life expands and enriches. It is fresh. It is vital with every passing hour.

In the name of Jesus Christ, I decree for you that you are charged, recharged, and you are charged again with the current of God. You are merged, blended, and bathed in God. God in you is radiant life and endless energy. There is no more fullness, feebleness, or weakness. There is a perpetual motion of God moving in you, restoring, nurturing, creating, and recreating. A great regeneration of God is causing you to be whole, balanced, and efficient.

The life-force of God, the energy-force of God is vibrant within you. It is forever your identity. You are the embodiment of this Spirit of life, of God.

And so it has been decreed and accepted here this day.

Dear God, I thank You.

In Jesus Christ name … Amen.

Since 1999 – The worldwide PRAYER PLACE inside the Internet, serving well over 1,600,000 every day. Welcoming all faiths, excluding no one. Reaching the ends of the earth with the positive message of God. Not connected to any church, Positive Christianity is a Prayer Ministry without walls, physical or denominational, that the world can instantly access and use without cost.

ARCHIVES of recent Positive Daily Inspiration is available on our homepage; use anything you wish.

FREE Encyclopedia of Prayers: http://www.positivechristianity.org/prayersearch.php

NEED PRAYER? Click here – if you have a prayer need, Positive Christianity will start praying with you, daily, for an entire month. There Is Never a Charge for Prayer.

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GOD BLESS YOU,
Christopher Ian Chenoweth

Since 1999 – The worldwide PRAYER PLACE inside the Internet, serving well over 1,600,000 every day. Welcoming all faiths, excluding no one.

Reaching the ends of the earth with the positive message of God. Not connected to any church, Positive Christianity is a Prayer Ministry without walls, physical or denominational, that the world can instantly access and use without cost.

ARCHIVES of recent Positive Daily Inspiration is available on our homepage; use anything you wish.

FREE Encyclopedia of Prayers: http://www.positivechristianity.org/prayersearch.php

NEED PRAYER? Click here – if you have a prayer need, Positive Christianity will start praying with you, daily, for an entire month. There Is Never a Charge for Prayer.

DONATIONS Thank You for helping us with this great free work for ministers of every faith:
Instant online donation:
https://positivechristianity.net/donation-tithe/
By mail: Positive Christianity Box 7993 Woodlands, TX 77387

GOD BLESS YOU,

Christopher Ian Chenoweth