Daily Devotional – July 21, 2020

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A brief bit of encouragement for your day from God's Word,

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Well, a good Tuesday afternoon to you. How are you doing today? And I trust your week is going well.
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Also, been enjoying some nicer weather. Beautiful time of year when, you know, the temperatures aren't so bad and the humidity isn't so high.
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Can appreciate the longer days and the sunshine and it's all just really refreshing.
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Well, I took my blood pressure this morning. When was the last time you took your blood pressure? Do you do that very often?
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I don't do it all that often. Usually I do it if I go to Walmart, you know, they have that little machine.
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I stick my arm in there. I haven't been to Walmart in a while and don't have any desire to go anytime soon, especially since they enforce that, you gotta wear a mask thing.
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But I took my blood pressure on a portable device this morning and came out pretty good.
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So the reading was, let's see, what was it? 111 over 71.
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So in terms of my blood pressure, I guess I'm going to be okay for a while. You know, blood pressure is a very important indicator of our health.
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So, you know, if you're in the hospital, it's like how many times a day does a nurse come in and take your blood pressure?
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If you go to the doctor's office, first thing, one of the first things they do other than take your weight on the way to the waiting room or on the way to the exam room is take your blood pressure.
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It's just a very common test to undergo and to just get a good idea of how things are going, what's going on inside the body.
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But if there was such a thing, and there isn't unfortunately, but if there was such a thing as a happy -o -meter, what would your reading be?
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What would your reading be? Well, there's not a happy -o -meter that you can put a cuff on your arm and puff it up and get a reading that says, oh, you're very happy or you're very sad or whatever.
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But if there were such a thing, what would your reading be? You know, Psalm 1, we kind of looked at it yesterday and particularly focused on the verse, the fruit being born in its season from the tree of the blessed one and the happy one.
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But I want to go back to verse 1 in that Psalm and allow it to challenge us about where we are in our happiness.
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So the verse 1 says, blessed is the man or happy is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.
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All right, let me read that again. Blessed or happy is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.
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So this is telling us some places where we can't be if we're going to be happy.
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But it does then give us some questions to consider, some indicators to look at that will help determine our level of happiness.
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So if I'm feeling just crummy and I'm unhappy, why am
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I unhappy? Is it because in the first place I'm listening to the wrong kind of counsel?
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So this verse says, blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, the counsel of the ungodly.
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So to whom am I listening for advice? Where do I go when
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I need to make a decision? What kind of counselors do
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I have? Do I get my counsel? Do I get my advice from what
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I'm watching on primetime television or the social media, friends on social media?
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Where do I get my advice? If my counsel is coming from those whose way of thinking, philosophy of life, worldview, etc.,
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is contrary to God's word and God's truth, then it's going to have an impact on my happiness.
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Secondly, it says blessed is the man that doesn't stand in the way of sinners. So the next question that I could ask myself is not only to whom am
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I listening, but with whom am I living and like whom am
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I living? If I could look around me and say, well, you know,
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I'm most like so -and -so, who would that so -and -so be? So this point that you don't, the blessed man doesn't stand in the way of sinners addresses the path of life that I choose, the path of life that I choose, which of course impacts my behavior.
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So ask yourself some questions. Am I on a path that leads to hurt? And that can be a path that leads to your own hurt or that can lead to the hurt of those who you say you love and those who love you the most.
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Are you on a pathway that is going to be hurtful to your family, to your spouse, to your children, to your church family?
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You know, we're living in a very selfish age and a lot of people are thinking, you know, I've got to do what's going to make me happy.
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I got to do what's going to make me happy. And they go off on something to try to make themselves happy.
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And they seem to be oblivious to whom they're hurting in the process.
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And the sad thing is that they may get a temporary jolt of pleasurable feeling, of happiness feeling, but they're not going down a path that's going to result in happiness.
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You know, happiness comes to the man who doesn't stand in the way of sinners. The path of life you choose is incredibly important.
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And then thirdly, it says, blessed is the man that doesn't sit in the seat of scoffers, doesn't sit in the seat of scoffers or of the scornful as the
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King James puts it. This has to do with the company that you keep. With whom do you feel most comfortable?
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That's a good question to ask yourself if you profess to be a Christian. Do you feel most comfortable with your fellow church members?
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Or do they make you feel uncomfortable? Why is that? If you're so uncomfortable with those in your church family, why is that?
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What's going on in your life that makes you so uncomfortable? With whom do you primarily identify?
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With whom do you feel most at home? And see, the thing is, if you feel most at home, again, with those whose lifestyle, whose philosophy of life, whose worldview, whose ideas of things are contrary to what
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God has to say to a biblical Christian worldview, you're going to find yourself unhappy if you profess to be a
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Christian. You're not going to be happy. True blessedness doesn't come.
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True happiness to the Christian does not come if you're walking in the counsel of the ungodly, if you're standing in the way of sinners, and if you're sitting in the seat of the scornful.
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Give some thought to this if you're sensing that you're not happy today. Why is that?
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Why is that? Where are you walking? What's the path that you're on? Where are you sitting?
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Who are your friends? With whom are you most comfortable? Let's pray and ask the
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Lord to give us insight into those questions as we ponder them today. So our Father and our
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God, this is wise counsel from your word. We're living in an age where happiness is defined so much in temporal, seemingly tangible things that can be fleeting, and the true happiness of your word is that your word talks about, that can be that of the
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Christian life, is ignored and it's rejected for the sake of these lesser things.
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So Father, I pray today that as we who claim to know Christ as our Savior, if we sense a deep -seated unhappiness in our heart, we truly examine our heart to find out why that is.
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So encourage us to do that because, Father, you want us to be a blessed, a happy people.
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So lead us in that, we pray. And this we ask in Jesus' name, amen. All right, well
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I hope the rest of your Tuesday goes well and I hope you will have to say, you know,
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I'm a pretty happy Christian. I hope that's your testimony today. God bless you.