Hold Your Horse and Enjoy Your Eternal Life Now!

Are you joyful this morning, evening, or anytime, depending on where in the world you are right now? Jesus expects us to live our lives in complete joy. That’s the outcome he expects from us. He said,

“I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” (John 15:11).

The question is, how do we maintain this complete joy living in this fallen world where the killjoys constantly attack us?

Recently, I got a negative comment on my YouTube channel, severely hurting my ego. Few people watch my sermons on YouTube. I don’t mind because I prepare my sermons to feed my congregation, and as long as my sheep feel fed, I am satisfied.

I posted my sermons on social media to share the good news, hoping someone who needed that message would find it helpful.

So, I was excited when I saw a couple of comments, but they were very negative. This man posted twice, saying, “Shame on you, Sam Stone. Shame on you!”

I wondered, “What did I say wrong?” I wanted to fight back, so I read his comments carefully. It turned out that he didn’t even listen to the entire sermon. He was spewing unfair criticisms that were utterly irrelevant to my message. So, I wanted to react.

I tried to track him down to find out who he was. It turned out to be a pastor and somewhat high profile. He was arrested in a foreign country, presumably for his faith, and our government paid a high price to get him released. Sounds like a hero!?

However, I found more news about him. He was arrested for abusing his wife. Wow, oh, wow! The more I dug, the more I discovered he was pretty deranged. The shame is on him, not on me! I felt pity for him. Responding to his comments would be a waste of time. I’ve discovered long ago that people with low self-esteem tend to be critical. Still, my ego couldn’t swallow the insult and almost reacted.

The lesson I learned from this is never to let negativity from anyone or anything affect your joy. Don’t react to other people’s reactivity if you want to maintain happiness. The question is, how not to react? How to hold your horse?

A better question is, “What makes us react?” If you know what makes you react, you know how to hold your horse. The only reason we want to react is when our ego gets hurt. We must crucify the ego first to live our eternal life with complete joy.

So, today, we will look at how Jesus taught us to hold our horses from reacting to the killjoys and live the eternal life that he offers us so that we can attain and maintain the complete joy he expects us to live based on this week’s scripture lesson. Let’s begin!