Christianity: Happy, Uplifting, or Difficult, Sorrowful?

[Sower]

Christianity: Happy, Uplifting, or Difficult, Sorrowful?
YES! All the above...

On 2/14/2019 at 10:29 AM, Zemke said:

Praise God for trials and problems, it may be the only way He keeps us attentive in our easy culture. What do we do when things go wrong? Get on our knees. It works.

Wisdom, for sure, Zemke.

Joh 15:1  I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman (the vine tender, pruning, cutting,less branch[self] more fruit)
Joh 15:2  Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth (prunes) it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
 

Joh 15:8  Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.

Being pruned by the Father............often-Difficult-sorrowful

Bearing much fruit..........................always-Happy-uplifting

Christian boot-camp,  now

Graduation-day,   future

When we all see Jesus, we'll sing and shout the victory...........

 

 

[Willa]

Sorry, folks, I am just not as spiritual as Peter James and Paul, and many of you.  I don't rejoice when trials come.  Yes there is rejoicing and worship in the midst of them because my God is worthy.  But I still dread them and resist them.  They are exhausting and often overwhelming.   I know God loves me and will use them for my good.  He will use me to comfort others going through the same afflictions.  Counting it all joy is just not where I am at.  Knowing that God does all things well and is doing what is best is somewhat comforting.  He is a kind and merciful God.  He walks with me through them and comforts me, but I don't enjoy physical pain or emotional pain and loss.   It is called suffering for a reason. 

[Zemke]

5 hours ago, Willa said:

Sorry, folks, I am just not as spiritual as Peter James and Paul, and many of you.  I don't rejoice when trials come.  Yes there is rejoicing and worship in the midst of them because my God is worthy.  But I still dread them and resist them.  They are exhausting and often overwhelming.   I know God loves me and will use them for my good.  He will use me to comfort others going through the same afflictions.  Counting it all joy is just not where I am at.  Knowing that God does all things well and is doing what is best is somewhat comforting.  He is a kind and merciful God.  He walks with me through them and comforts me, but I don't enjoy physical pain or emotional pain and loss.   It is called suffering for a reason. 

I believe we are all on the same page. I don't think any of us are happy and dancing during trials. Jesus prayed that we would have His joy a few hours before being arrested and right before that He prayed "if there be any other way." But for the joy set before Him, He endured the cross. "His joy", I'm thinking, isn't singing and dancing with smiles and happiness. It can include that but more along the lines of faith in "all things work 'together' for the better" and that He has an expected end for us all.

 

[Who me]

On 2/14/2019 at 2:21 PM, Mystic_Pizza said:

we have the ministers we all see on TV,

What is wrong with the minister in your local church?

tv or online church services should be the exception, not what you normally watch rather than attend church.

Those who preach a health, wealth and prosperity gospel should not be watched ever or such churches attended.

The Christian life is to serve and glorify God and in doing that we should find that we are living our lives to the fullest extend.

[Mystic_Pizza]

22 hours ago, Who me said:

What is wrong with the minister in your local church?

tv or online church services should be the exception, not what you normally watch rather than attend church.

Those who preach a health, wealth and prosperity gospel should not be watched ever or such churches attended.

The Christian life is to serve and glorify God and in doing that we should find that we are living our lives to the fullest extend.

Not a thing, actually- but we just moved recently to a huge city and don't have a home church yet, so there's that...in the meantime, thank goodness for youtube and the ability to watch church services from our previous church.

[Who me]

On 2/20/2019 at 1:58 PM, Mystic_Pizza said:

but we just moved recently to a huge city and don't have a home church yet

As part of your reserch into where you were going to live, didn't you check out what churches were in the area, what your pastor thought of them and sites like christianityexplored web site.?

Even if you just visit churches on sunday the uk site shipoffools mysteryworshipper is useful for providing feedback on how a church welcomes visitors and qwhat the service is like.

[Mystic_Pizza]

16 minutes ago, Who me said:

As part of your reserch into where you were going to live, didn't you check out what churches were in the area, what your pastor thought of them and sites like christianityexplored web site.?

Even if you just visit churches on sunday the uk site shipoffools mysteryworshipper is useful for providing feedback on how a church welcomes visitors and qwhat the service is like.

Actually, Who me, I checked a little bit into the churches in the area - a very, very large area, I might add...but we only had three weeks from the time my husband was hired for the job we moved for, and the time we landed - a couple of states away from where we were living - to where we are now, lol. So things were on a pretty tight timeline, and there wasn't a whole lot of time to do everything that needed to be done~ I have to say, though- we loved the church we were at in the place we lived before, and we're lucky enough that they put their sermons on youtube so we can watch them- and I honestly feel that it's almost the same as when we were there- we didn't really have a 'social' type situation with the people at the church we were at, in all honesty we were there for the sermons, lol- now, had we been in our 20s or 30s, which we aren't, with the whole family structure/kids (ours are grown), then a 'home church' would probably hold a whole different meaning for us- but like I said, until we find somewhere else, I'm thankful for the videos online that we have. God bless the advent of the internet, lol~

[missmuffet]

On 2/14/2019 at 6:21 AM, Mystic_Pizza said:

When you have to come up with a title to get the meaning of the forum across in as few words as possible, it's not an easy thing sometimes, lol!

I have a question for everyone: living the Christian life, what are your thoughts on it and what, emotionally, do you think it should be?

On the one hand, we have the ministers we all see on TV, or hear about who believe that the Christian life should be one of constant joy and uplifting moments, where you can 'loose the manna from heaven!', and live a successful, happy, financially somewhat lucrative life. The ministers who feel that there is some sort of 'secret formula' where if you do certain things (faith, tithing, etc.), God has no choice but to bless you with *insert something from the 'good life' here*, because there are...physical laws or whatever that are put into place when a person does 'A', and 'B' has to follow it, no matter what. If you are not living an 'overcomer's' life, if your life isn't being blessed with overall good health and semi-to-abundant wealth, these ministers say your faith isn't strong enough, or whatever- I'm sure everyone knows what I'm talking about, here.

On the other hand...we have Christians who believe that life on this earth wasn't meant to be 'happy' in the sense that I've just described in the paragraph above- not that you have to be utterly miserable, but that 'wealth, abundant living (I mean in the physical comfort sense), good health, blessings all around' are not the norm. I think of what...Paul (?) said (and I'm paraphrasing...loosely), that if Christians had only this life in which to be happy then we are the most miserable of creatures- stating, in essence, that this physical life is not the 'be all and end all' that we should be aspiring to, but that we should work in this life toward the life to come after this. I also think of what the OT said about Jesus, (who I believe some Jews believe that Jesus was the 'Suffering Christ' as opposed to the victorious one to come in the future, two separate ones, I think they believe- could be wrong) "He was a man of sorrows, well acquainted with grief". When you read of Jesus' life in the NT, and prophecies about Him in the OT, when you realize that He is the only Son of God, come in the flesh as a final sin sacrifice once and for all, for mankind....and then you look at the 'Christian life' in my first paragraph here, big difference. Bigggg difference.

So, what does everyone think? Should the Christian life be one of joy, happiness, overcoming, etc.- or is it the second paragraph I posted? A combination of both? I'm curious to know everyone's take on this

 

In addition, here....when I said 'work in this life toward the life to come after this', I did not mean that we have to 'work' to get to heaven, or anything of that nature- by 'work' I mean that we have to...concentrate, devote the majority of our energies towards what is to come after this life, and not devote so terribly much to 'riches, etc.' in this life- I add this in here because I just know someone is going to point it out and say, "Hey! we're already saved! We don't have to 'work' for our salvation, etc. etc", and I just thought I would beat them to the punch, lol~

I am not the same person I was 10 or 20 years ago. God is constantly changing me. I make sacrifices in my life to please God. I have hope. A hope of an eternity with God. Being a Christian does not mean your life will always be easy. It is staying totally focused on God when things get bad. He will bring you through it. 

[frienduff thaylorde]

Hey mystic pizza and everyone who names the name of Christ .    Let me show us an example of being exceeding joyful .

For In Christ we have JOY no matter what .  its not based on our circumstances , OUR JOY is based IN CHRIST , BY CHRIST .

And now a word from paul .

I am EXCEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDING JOYFUL n all our TRIBULATIONS .       take that to the bank , the bank of eternal truth FOUND ONLY IN CHRIST >