You have to Laugh
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· 15 viewsThe importance of laughing in the life of a Christian
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I believe that I have mentioned before that when I was younger I used to have a lot of issues with my temper
As a result I often heard the advice, “You have to learn to control your emotions so that your emotions don’t control you”
I think that is part of the reason why, even to this day, i rarely show emotion
As Liane likes to say, “This is Dan happy. This is Dan sad. This is Dan angry”
I like this meme I found a while ago (Darth Vader Emotions)
There’s is a lot of truth to not allowing your negative emotions overtake you
In writing to the Ephesians Paul said,
(The Message)
26–27 Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry—but don’t use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don’t stay angry. Don’t go to bed angry.
But I believe that what has happened is that in trying to quell the negative emotions we have tried to do away with all emotion
And that’s not good, that’s not how God created us to be
Sometimes it’s okay to let our good emotions run away with us so to speak
Do you remember the story in when the ark of the covenant was finally being brought back to Jerusalem?
Let me read for you
2 Samuel 6:
Now King David was told, “The Lord has blessed the household of Obed-Edom and everything he has, because of the ark of God.” So David went to bring up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the City of David with rejoicing. When those who were carrying the ark of the Lord had taken six steps, he sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf. Wearing a linen ephod, David was dancing before the Lord with all his might, while he and all Israel were bringing up the ark of the Lord with shouts and the sound of trumpets.
David was dancing before the Lord with all his might! Now that sounds like a man who let himself get carried away by his emotions and he was a man after God’s own heart
Maybe that’s because God likes to laugh
Don’t believe me? , “Heaven-throned God breaks out laughing” (the Message)
And what about , “ (NASB95)
“The Lord your God is in your midst,
A victorious warrior.
He will exult over you with joy,
He will be quiet in His love,
He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.
The Hebrew word, ‘rejoice,’ means to “spin around under violent emotion.” The phrase “rejoice over you” literally means to “dance, skip, leap, and spin in joy.”
So when should you laugh?
Well let me tell you what the Bible says
You should laugh when God does a work in you
Our mouths were filled with laughter,
our tongues with songs of joy.
Then it was said among the nations,
“The Lord has done great things for them.”
A psalm.
Sing to the Lord a new song,
for he has done marvelous things;
his right hand and his holy arm
have worked salvation for him.
The Lord has made his salvation known
and revealed his righteousness to the nations.
He has remembered his love
and his faithfulness to Israel;
all the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation of our God.
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth,
burst into jubilant song with music;
make music to the Lord with the harp,
with the harp and the sound of singing,
with trumpets and the blast of the ram’s horn—
shout for joy before the Lord, the King.
Let the sea resound, and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it.
Let the rivers clap their hands,
let the mountains sing together for joy;
let them sing before the Lord,
for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness
and the peoples with equity.
Now the very fact that God has saved us through His Son, Jesus Christ, should be enough to keep us laughing and singing for the rest of our lives
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
Worship the Lord with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
Know that the Lord is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.
Psalm 100:1-5
But I realize that such is not the case so let me give you a couple more examples of when to laugh
How about when things are going well and you are happy
Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise.
Now this doesn’t just mean the to sing the latest, top of the charts praise chorus
This means to sing from what is inside you, the hope, the wonder, the joy, the Holy Spirit!
Praise the Lord, my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
And do you know when else you should laugh?
How about when you don’t feel like it. When you’re down and the world just keeps kicking you
Matthew 5:
“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods. After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. When he received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.
I came across this fact a while back and I’d like to share it with you, a university study has determined that the average child laughs 150 times a day, but by the time we become adults that number decreases 10 fold to just 15
Now I want you to think about the command of Jesus in
And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
I know that we think that only applies to child-like faith but reread that chapter and I think you’ll find that it means more than that
The kingdom of heaven is not just some far of place that God is preparing for us, Jesus said the kingdom is at hand
And if we want to experience it than we need to let our emotions run away with us, we need to become like little children, we need to laugh because as Proverbs tells us
A cheerful heart is good medicine,
but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.
Let’s pray