YOUR FACE WILL SHURLEY SHOW IT.

Is there someone(s) running the church other than Jesus?

Yes.  This has gone on almost from day one of the church being birthed in Acts 2.  The battle began even earlier in the New Testament.  Look at Jesus.  See him strive to give hope to the beaten and the neglected.  And what did it get him?  Shouts of Crucify him!

I don't know of a stickier wicket than church.  While it has so many on missionary journeys to aid the poor and rescue the lost, many more are back home offending the waitresses at noon on Sunday with our religious snobbery of scowls and frowny faces. We may not see it.  But shurely the unchurched note we, at times, appear more constipated than regenerated.

Are all who attend churches this way?  Most this way?  The answer is that too many are this way and society picks up on our un-joy every bit as much as our over-joy.

Ever hear the words of a song, If you're happy and you know it, then your face will shurely show it?  This, many would know, are words from a children's song often bouncing through the VBS atmosphere.  I like it!  These are always impacting words!

The fruit of the Spirit is to be the trademark of the church member.  Our love and joy and peace, and patience...it impacts where we live or wherever we travel.  Of course we are found to weep.  We don't live numbly.  Yet, we are to walk in the Spirit.  Gloom isn't of Him.  Sour isn't either.

I believe that one of the strongest evangelistic tools the church possesses is found on the faces of its disciples.  Yes, we have struggles and disappointments galore.  That's the point.  Only God could put a smile on the face of the mistreated and the injured and the offended and the lonely.  Only God.

I've preached many a sermon yelling, pounding, and threatening.  I didn't get that from God.  I got it from the mistaken side (the abusive side) of religion.  In the law I found the need to clearly parade my strictness.  However, in Jesus I found a new kind of authentic life that is embedded in joy....to the world!

Be aware of the temptation to be more concerned about how one misspells SURELY than we are about moving through our days with joy in our hearts and smiles on our faces.