What kind of life did Jesus come to bring us? A sad life? A depressed life? A barely rake by, scrape by life? Is that what a Christian is supposed to be? No, God gave us things to enjoy (1Tim. 6:17). Mark, this down sanguine personalities are not the only ones that are supposed to be enjoying life! Certain personality types have a harder time chilling out than other personality types. The key to it is for all of us to learn to enjoy the normal everyday situations of life. Here are some further thoughts on making a quality decision to enjoy life.

Matthew 10:39 (AMP)
39 Whoever finds his [lower] life will lose it [the higher life], and whoever loses his [lower] life on My account will find it [the higher life].

• What Jesus experienced in the garden of Gethsemane and what happened afterward was for a season.

Hebrews 12:2 (ESV)
2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

• The Bible says Jesus endured the cross, it did not say anything about Him enjoying it.
• We are admonished the same way

2 Timothy 2:3 (KJV)
3 Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

• These are not everyday situations
• What do you do the rest of the time?

• We have to learn to enjoy life.

John 10:10 (ESV)
10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

• The Bible has great things to say about how you are a very Son of the Most High God.
• That is serious business being a child of His
• There is a lot of responsibility to being hooked up with deity!
• But, Sons of God are also sons of the earth
• And all sons have to take out the trash!

• Joyce Meyer said these words and it helped me. She said,…

I was always going somewhere and never truly enjoying anywhere. I was deceived by thinking that I would have joy when I arrived – that now was a time of sacrifice and hard work. I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing as tragic as being alive and not enjoying life. – Joyce Meyer ¹

• My father was that way – always working – always looking up the road
• He put everything towards retirement and he never made it there – he died at 61.
• But, you may say “You do not know what I am going through?”

Job 5:22 (ESV)
22 At destruction and famine you shall laugh, and shall not fear the beasts of the earth.

• Destruction and famine – mind you!!!!
• The commandment of God is to laugh in the hard places.
• One person said, “A guy broke into my house searching for money, so I just got up and I started searching with him!”
• Enjoy life today!
• Enjoy where you are on the way to where you are going!
• Understand that I am not talking about mis-spending your life on carnal pleasures – that is not enjoyment.
• Sometimes, we have a false sense of what enjoyment really is.
• It is almost like how candy is so super sweet and we eat it so and get so used to that false level of sweetness found in sugar until when we eat an orange, it almost sour to us. We do not enjoy what real sweet us because our base has been compromised.

Enjoying Life Is an Inside Job

• Enjoyment first of all emanates from within – it has a spiritual component – it has to have
• It is that which satisfies the heart
• It is an inside job

John 6:63 (KJV)
63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

• If you do not think that spiritual life has an element of enjoyment, do not go to heaven because that place is full of life and full of joy!

Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Be happy now. Don’t wait for something outside yourself to make you happy in the future. Think how really precious is the time you have to spend, whether it’s at work or with family. Live life so completely that when death comes to you like a thief in the night, there will be nothing left for him to steal.

Spiritual Things You Should Really Enjoy

• Reading your Bible
• Talking to God
• Believing God
• Can we say it this way – you should enjoy God
• God is the coolest person, you have ever hung out with
• Think about the perspective you can have from a guy that made everything!
• Some people say, “I do not like reading the Bible or praying”.
• Really? -So – what you are saying is that you are willing to spend all of eternity with someone you do not really enjoy talking to?
• Isn’t that more like hell than heaven?
• Praying is fun, if you do not think so, your base is compromised – you have a false sense of sweet in your system!
• Reading the Bible is fun, look at what the Psalmist said…

Psalm 119:103 (KJV)
103 How sweet are thy words unto my taste! Yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

• Revelations from God should make you happy!
• You should get ecstatic when you hear from Him.
• So, enjoy prayer, enjoy Bible reading, and enjoy believing God.
• ILLUSTRATION: can I tell you about Kobalt?
• Kobalt is our American Startfordshire Bull Terrier
• Kobalt has one goal in life – eat food! Kobalt is a chow hound. He absolutely is crazy about food.Feeding time is his favorite time of day. It seems like His whole life is that one moment. He gets the most excited, the most happy, he lives for that one moment.
• One of us dropped a little tiny crumb of food on the floor – he licked the floor (that spot) for an hour!
• Here is my point – and my question – do you enjoy the Lord so much that you live to get into His Presence? Are you most happy when you are reading your Bible and seeking God? Are you the most excited when you hear from Him?
• Do you order your life in such a way as to be sure that you hear from your friend God?
• Did you ever hear of a man named George Muller?
• Muller was known for his ministry to orphan children in England in the 19th century.
• And also known for these three things we have been talking about, prayer, Bible reading and believing God.
• He wrote in his journal these words…
• “HABITS OF SLEEP. My own experience has been, almost invariably, that if I have not the needful sleep, my spiritual enjoyment and strength is greatly affected by it. I judge it of great moment that the believer, in travelling, should seek as much as possible to refrain from travelling by night, or from travelling in such a way as that he is deprived of the needful night’s rest; for if he does not, he will be unable with renewed bodily and mental strength to give himself to prayer and meditation, and the reading of the Holy Scriptures, and he will surely feel the pernicious effects of this all the day long. There may occur cases when travelling by night cannot be avoided; but, if it can, though we should seem to lose time by it, and though it should cost more money, I would most affectionately and solemnly recommend the refraining from night-travelling; for, in addition to our drawing beyond measure upon our bodily strength, we must be losers spiritually.”
• What did George Muller do? So important and so vital was his Bible reading, and prayer time, that he adjusted his life in such a way to make sure he got the proper rest so that he could get up and be fresh and ready for it.
• He said, if he did not do it, it would affect his enjoyment of it.
• What were the results of this type of thinking and this type of living?
• In a work that started in 1834 and lasted 64 years, George Muller prayed in 7.5 million dollars then (which is like 180 million dollars in today’s money) without asking a soul for a dime. He wrote no appeal letters, made no pull for money.He just read the Word and meditated on it. He prayed and believed God to feed 10,000 different orphans over the course of that time.
• He built 5 orphan houses
• He had 7 day – schools whose total attendance from the outset was 81,501
• The Sunday schools that he started and aided – 32,944 children
• Bibles and portions of scripture he gave away – 1,989,266
• Books and tracts he gave away – 3,101,338.
• And he asked no one for a dime of it!
• Read his biography and there are instances where the children would begin to come and sit around the tables at mealtime and there would not be a drop of food in the house.
• Many times, he received unsolicited food donations only hours before they were needed to feed the children, further strengthening his faith in God. For example, on one well-documented occasion, they gave thanks for breakfast when all the children were sitting at the table, even though there was nothing to eat in the house. As they finished praying, the baker knocked on the door with sufficient fresh bread to feed everyone, and the milkman gave them plenty of fresh milk because his cart broke down in front of the orphanage.
• Muller said,…
• I am not going to preach a sermon on our needs
• I am not going to put out prayer requests about our needs
• I am not going to tell any man about the needs.
• I am going to tell God and He is going to meet the need and He DID!
• Do you think you might enjoy watching God do things like this?

Call to Action:

Mueller’s God is your God! He is the same God today as He was then. So, make the quality decision to enjoy reading the Bible, enjoy praying and enjoy believing God.

Question: What process did you go through to make sure that you take life in fully? Please leave a comment in the comments section below.