Our theme for this month: “Laugh Again”

Our Bible verse for today: “And my God will supply all your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Now to our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen.” Philippians 4:19-20 (CSB)

As we conclude our month-long study about learning to laugh again I want to revisit a few of the key themes we’ve considered.

In Philippians 4:19-20 the Apostle Paul made a pretty bold statement, a promise really, about the provision of God in our lives. Please note that he wrote about God providing for “all” of your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. That’s a pretty all-inclusive statement. It’s a reminder of that great passage from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6:25-34 where Jesus taught us about the sovereignty of God and the provisions of God. Your Father in heaven is aware of your every need, He has the power to provide for you, and He is committed to doing exactly that. The lesson? A Christian has every reason in the world to be one big “hallelujah” from head to toe!

Another lesson we learned is that laughter is good medicine (Proverbs 17:22), but a heavy spirit dries up the bones. A heavy spirit makes you sour and grumpy. Laughter lightens things up and makes you feel better. Happy people are healthy people. Even if your body is sick, your spirit is healthy. Laughter is good medicine.

Many of our devotional messages were about the importance of being intentional about being happy (Psalm 118:24). You can’t always choose your circumstances but you can always choose your attitude about your circumstances. I encourage you to go back and review some of the strategies we discussed for being intentionally joyful in your outlook and attitude.

We have also considered the brevity of life (Psalm 39:4-5) and the value of time (2 Corinthians 7:2). Life is too short and our time is too valuable to waste it in trivial pursuits or with a negative attitude. Life is also too short to live small or to whine about getting old. By the way, a great question once asked by Pastor Chuck Swindoll is “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?” In other words, you’re as young as you feel. Laughter and a happy light-hearted spirit keep you feeling young.

Finally this month I’m reminded of how much joy I personally receive from my little sissy dogs that I told you about in a previous devotional. But not everyone has that kind of a positive experience with their pets. I remember a sad pet story told by a man who claimed to have had a very sad life – the comedian Rodney Dangerfield. His childhood experiences with his dog were not happy. His dog’s favorite bone was Rodney’s arm. The dog was also evidently an Egyptian breed because he left little pyramids everywhere he went. And perhaps worst of all, Rodney’s parents had to tie a pork chop around his neck just to get the dog to play with him!

That’s sad! My prayer for you is that you have more to laugh about in your life than poor Rodney had in his.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our mailing address is:

Our theme for this month: “Laugh Again”

Our Bible verse for today: “Lord, make me aware of my end and the number of my days so that I will know how short-lived I am. In fact, you have made my days just inches long, and my life span is as nothing to you. Yes, every human being stands as only a vapor.” Psalm 39:4-5 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Life is short, so enjoy it.”

Today is my sixty-fifth birthday. I don’t tell you that because I’m looking for “Happy Birthday” wishes (you can reach me on Facebook, text message, email, or phone); nor am I looking for presents (my shirt size is large; I love ice cream, golfing, hiking, and kayaking; and books are always a nice gift); and I absolutely am not looking for anyone to treat me to a birthday meal (I’ll be at the Cracker Barrel in Crossville this morning at 8:30 for the monthly Oak Hill Baptist Church men’s breakfast).

No, I don’t tell you it’s my birthday for any of those reasons (did I mention I like books?), I tell you it’s my birthday simply as a convenient and relevant bridge into a discussion about the brevity of life. As King David noted in Psalm 39, life is short. Even if we live to be 70, 80, 90 years old, our life is but a dot on the time-line of eternity. It is a vapor, a wisp of smoke that is here for a moment and then vanishes.

Life is too short and too precious to be wasted on trivial things or to be spent moping around in bitterness and resentment. As we’ve been learning all this month, life should be embraced and enjoyed, fully and with gusto. Also, we have to be careful we don’t take our problems and difficulties too seriously. Will the things you’re worried about today matter much this time next week, next month, next year, or a decade from now? Probably not. So why let them get you down now? Life is too short to live small, or to be negative and pessimistic. Embrace life and enjoy it.

Also, learn to laugh about old age issues. It annoys me when I hear people complain about getting old. Many people never live long enough to get old! If you’re 60, 70, 80, or 90 years old you have been given a privilege that many people never get. Appreciate it and enjoy it!

Just the other day I heard a guy laughing about his old age issues and making fun of himself because of them. He said that the older he gets the more his body becomes like an old junk car. He said that now-a-days every time he sneezes it causes his radiator to leak and his exhaust backfires!

I can relate brother. Mine too. But so what? Let’s just laugh about it and enjoy another day of life that the Lord has granted us.

God Bless,

Pastor Jim (Sixty-five but still kicking butt and taking names! Lol)

Our mailing address is:

Our theme for this month: “Laugh Again”

Our Bible verse for today: “Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:6-7 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Pray about it”

Many Christians are too serious. Some of us go through life with long faces and heavy hearts, dreading what the day might hold. Sometimes our burdens and concerns seem more than we can bear and our countenance reflects it. People see us coming and they know before we even open our mouth that things are bothering us.

But shouldn’t Christians live above their circumstances? With the power of the Holy Spirit in us, with the peace of Jesus pervading our hearts, and with the joy of salvation that is ours, shouldn’t we be able to handle the simple trials of life with a better attitude?

The answer of course is “yes”, we should be able to. It’s certainly true that in every life there will be major events that cause us pain and suffering, and in every life there will be moments of discouragement and even depression, but overall our lives should be characterized by a light-hearted joy, a sunny and whimsical personality, and laughter.

In Philippians 4:6-7 the Apostle Paul tells us how to achieve that. There he instructs us to pray about the things that are bothering us. It’s hard to remain downhearted and depressed if you really do bring your issue to God in prayer and then leave it there with Him. Like Paul says, “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

So pray about it. You can even get creative about it. I recently read a story told by Pastor Chuck Swindoll about a woman he knew who desperately wanted to get married and have children. But at the age of 31 she was still single, with no man in sight. (This is a true story). So finally she decided to get creative in her praying about this issue. She took a pair of men’s pants and hung them on the end of her bed. Then each night she would get down on her knees in prayer and this is the little prayer she recited:

“Father in heaven, hear my prayer, and grant it if you can.
I’ve hung these trousers here, as you can see, now please fill them with a man.”

No kidding, within a year she was married and she had her first child at the age of 32. But the story didn’t end there. Pastor Chuck says that he told that story once as a sermon illustration. A couple of weeks later a father in the congregation approached him with a grin on his face and said, “When you told that story two weeks ago my teenage son was sitting next to me in church. I noticed that while the rest of us were laughing he just sat there looking thoughtful. Last night I went into his bedroom to say goodnight and I saw that he had a bikini hanging on the foot of his bed!”

So there you have it. Evidently the trick is to be creative with your praying.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our mailing address is:

Our theme for this month: Laugh Again”

Our Bible verse for today: “Finally brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable – if there is any moral excellence and if there is anything praiseworthy, dwell on these things.” Philippians 4:8 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Think like you want to feel.”

Mondays are my day off. This past Monday was sunny and in the mid-70s so I took off on my Harley for a long motorcycle ride along beautiful country roads. And it was beautiful. The trees and flowers are in bloom, the fields are a deep rich green, the rivers and creeks are full and flowing, wildlife is out – the scenery was gorgeous!

But suddenly I realized I wasn’t really seeing or appreciating it. Instead my mind was dwelling on, mulling over, wrestling with, things that were bothering me. There’s that extra five pounds of belly fat that I can’t seem to get rid of. And then there are the widows on the house that haven’t been cleaned since last summer. Then my phone vibrated and I just had to stop to see what it was. Sure enough, work-related text messages! I responded. And then as I rode along I started thinking about those work issues. So I stopped again and sent some more responses.

Finally I realized that I wasn’t really enjoying my time off on this beautiful day and it was my own fault. I was allowing my mind to dwell on things I should not have been thinking about instead of relaxing and soaking-in the peaceful beauty all around me. And as a result, I was not feeling happy or relaxed. Instead I was brooding and a little stressed.

We are responsible for the things we allow our mind to dwell on. It’s true that what the mind dwells on is largely a factor of influences we have allowed into it, but even once we have surrounded ourselves with good influences we still need to choose to focus on that rather than on the negative. You can be riding a motorcycle in the country but be thinking about a work project. You can be listening to Christian praise music but be thinking about your annoying neighbor.

You get my point. In Philippians 4:8 Paul counsels us to fill our minds with good stuff, and to then actually dwell on that good stuff rather than on negatives. Do you want to be happy? Then think about things that make you happy. Do you want to laugh? Then think about funny things.

And speaking of funny things that make you laugh, when I got home from that motorcycle ride, a little grumpy and disappointed because I didn’t take full advantage of it, I was met at the door by our two little sissy dogs (8 pounds each). When they saw me they yipped and yapped in joy. They jumped up and down and one of them ran in a tight circle chasing her tail and yipping in delight at the same time. They rubbed up against my ankles and stood on their hind legs waiting to be picked up, all while furiously wagging their tails. Their minds were fully focused on me, and to them I was the most important person in the world. They were just happy I was home and that’s all they were thinking about. As a result they were filled with joy.

I remember thinking to myself as I enjoyed their attention, “Lord, help me to actually be the person my dogs seem to think I am.” And then I laughed because I realized that dogs are better at being happy than we are. And that made me laugh some more.

I hope you find lots to laugh about today too.

God Bless,

Pastor Jim

Our mailing address is:

Our theme for this month: “Laugh Again”

Our Bible verse for today: “I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.” John 15:5 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Experience the joy of Jesus in your life.”

On Friday Jesus died a terrible death on a cross. That was Friday, but Sunday was coming. On Saturday Jesus was in the grave and His followers were in mourning. That was Saturday, but Sunday was coming. On Sunday Jesus arose from the grave – and nothing has been the same since!

The resurrection changes everything. Death has been defeated and the promise of a glorious eternal life in heaven now belongs to all those who place their faith in the Resurrected Savior.

Have you experienced the joy of Jesus in your life? All this month in our devotional series we’ve been exploring the concept of “Laugh Again”. The idea is that we don’t laugh enough and we don’t experience enough joy in life. Many of us have resigned ourselves to simply trudging through our days, wearing life like a heavy old coat, putting one foot in front of the other and simply getting through life. That shouldn’t be, and it’s not the life the Lord intends for us to experience. We need to learn to “laugh again”.

In John 15:5 Jesus said that one of the purposes of His ministry was so that we might have His joy in our hearts. That would make our joy complete. In Galatians 5:22-23 the Apostle Paul described for us what a life like that might look like. As a follower of Jesus embraces Him and learns to be more like Him this is a picture of what it will look like: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” This is the “completion” Jesus was talking about and it is a part of the Easter story. Easter is about eternal life, that’s true, but it is also about fullness of life now.

Most devotionals in this series have ended with a joke or a whimsical thought, but no jokes this morning. Instead I encourage you to simply spend a few moments thinking about the joy of Jesus in your life. I hope you are experiencing it in ever-increasing measure.

I also want to invite you to our Easter celebration at Oak Hill Baptist Church. We will serve an Easter morning buffet breakfast from 9:00-9:50 in the Fellowship Hall. During that time there will also be an Easter egg hunt for the children. Our Easter celebration service will begin at 10:00. Please join us! The love of Jesus and the joy of Jesus will be abundant supply!

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our mailing address is:

Our theme for this month: “Laugh Again”

Our Bible verse for today: “Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, urge you to live worthy of the calling you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” Ephesians 4:1-3 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Go ahead and cuddle up to the porcupine.”

I love John Ortberg’s book, “Everybody’s Normal – Till You Get to Know Them”. It’s a great title for a book – it’s funny and intriguing, and it makes you grin and want to read it. And sure enough, the title is a pretty good clue about the fun lessons that lie within.

The first chapter is entitled “The Porcupine’s Dilemma”. Porcupines need love too, and they want to cuddle too, but when they get too close to each other there’s the danger of getting poked by a sharp quill. You see, if the porcupine gets a little agitated, for any reason, the quills come out and then someone is going to get poked.

Hello! Welcome to church. We’re all a bunch of porcupines with sharp quills. We need and want love, and we want to have good relationships with others in our church family, but if you get too close, and if someone gets a little agitated, the sharp quills might come out and someone is going to get poked.

The answer to our dilemma is found in Ephesians 4:1-3. There Paul urges us to consciously and intentionally live with humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another in love. He wrote it again in Colossians 3:12-13. There he put it this way: “Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another.”

Rather than getting upset or annoyed at other people’s peculiar personality quirks, learn to laugh about them. Find amusement in the fact that we are all a little weird. John Ortberg playfully illustrates that in his book by explaining that if you were an item for sale in a department store, you would be featured on the bargain clearance table along with a sign that says “Slightly irregular. Flawed. Sold as is.” The fact is that none of us are “normal”. We’re all flawed and we’re all annoying in some way. There really is no “normal”. So lighten up and laugh about it.

By the way, if you’ve had to stand in a grocery store check-out line recently then perhaps you have seen the glaring headline on the front cover of a popular women’s magazine that reads, “Totally Normal Women Who Stalk Their Ex-Boyfriends!”

Seriously? They stalk their ex-boyfriends but they’re totally “normal”? Evidently the dating scene has changed in the forty-three years since I’ve been in it! There must be a new normal these days! I think I’ll just cuddle up to my sweet wife (sharp quills and all) and be grateful for what I have. We’re both a little odd and occasionally annoying (me much more than her), but we’ve learned to laugh about it.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

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