Cultivate gladness! These words leaped out at me and struck a chord of joy as I read them in Andrew Murray’s book, ABIDING IN CHRIST. What a marvelous precept, I thought….along with the Scriptures that exhort us to rejoice, always, again and again; to count it all joy; to give thanks in all things. Ah yes!
Murray goes on to illustrate this point. He says, and I paraphrase, that sometimes inexpressible joy just arises in us, spontaneously, usually when things are humming along, prayers are answered almost before we call and we feel our relationship with the Lord is on a high note. “We feel the unutterable joy of the Savior’s presence with us and we praise God for it and seek to maintain that position.” But, he admonishes, or rather encourages….when feelings are dull and the experiences of joy are not at the height that you would wish them to be, and in fact…you feel you have lost your joy….STILL, praise the Lord for the unutterable blessings of redemption. Praise Him, because Jesus said, ‘according to your faith let it be unto you.’
So, I see that Faith is the substance of things hoped for, and promised to us…the evidence of things not SEEN in this temporal world (at the moment, anyway.) But that Faith that the Lord commends unto us, IS the evidence that though we do not see the joy at the moment, or feel the joy at the moment our faith tells us and proves that it is there. And THAT pleases the Father. The blind faith with which we praise Him, anyway, for a condition in which we do not see joy is what moves the hand of God. But more than that IT PLEASES HIM!
So practice joy. CULTIVATE GLADNESS. Practice, practice. Praise God for joy unspeakable and full of mercy, for if we do in all things we will live to see salvation of God in the land of the living.
thedailylily.com 
I understand, “Cultivate Gladness” to mean that I am to take every opportunity I can possibly think of to praise another for their good fortune. I am so glad for you and add the reason. Examples, I am so glad for Chickenfarmer and her good fortune to have a free cruise to enjoy. I am so glad for Debi that she was able to buy a new truck. I am so glad for Rena and her first grandchild. I am so glad for MG and the financial opportunities she has to take such excellent care of herself and help others. I am so glad for Needles and her housekeeper and the many gifts she is given in caring for her home and family. Including all the many delicious homemade dishes prepared and given to her.
Practice, practice, practice. I will look for some other good fortunate that is flowing out to others and practice again tomorrow. This is the view I see in cultivating gladness.
I am so glad for all that won oscars last night.
That sure seems like a view from the right angle. That kind of cultivation makes for a healthy garden and a grateful mind and heart.
I think I understand the blog to say if I practice Joy I will cultivate gladness. Albert Einstein says, “Enjoying the joys of others and suffering with them___
these are the best guides for man.” I read this in Homecoming Magazine___also, read that many had new CDs and new books. I am so glad for them. Michael Smith and Thomas Williams have a new book, “What I learned from A Simple Blessing.” This is blessing others in joys and sufferings. I am so glad for the authors of this book.
I am so glad that The Holy Spirt has directed my life in this path as well. I teach in retreats from a workbook I have written that we cultivate our joy, and success, fulfill our dreams and visions, write our books, publish our CDs by being glad for others.
I am so glad for Needles and her sister that they have tickets to Chanda Pierce and dinner. A night of humor, fun, joy, and spiritual strength to take with them through life each and every day.
I am glad that Sara was blessed with a son, with a genius ability and the willingness to help us keep this website going.
I am glad the Needles and Chris have been blessed with twin boys and they have taught them how to respect and love others. Love the way they interact with all of us giving us much joy. So glad they are young men of integrity that makes the world a happier place.
I am so glad for the one or ones that discovered coconut and makes it available in all kinds of forms for our enjoyment, health and pleasure. And, I am really glad for MG giving me as a gift jars and jars of it!
I am glad for Sara’s brother, Wallace for allowing Sara to purchase land, for whatever plans God has for it.
I am glad for a God Who called me from before the foundation of the earth to be in fellowship and under the auspices of thedailylily.org and the ministerial leader who has persevered under all conditions and circumstances.
I am glad for a paradisical city called EDENTON and a little piece of Paradise called Pea Ridge. Who would have thought this up except the Lord Jesus Christ and has brought His people whom He has known beforehand to be together in the Body of Christ. This is something to rejoice over, for sure.
Sara, you have taught this in your book(s) about the rejoicing over OTHERS’ successes and being present in the spirit, so to speak, with them in their achievements knowing that God will make all things right for rejoicing whether it’s theirs or ours or yours or mine. For a just God will not do unjustly. So we can rejoice with our brothers and sisters when, as you have said in several places, they publish, or record or speak or conduct, etc. It’s planting the seed for one’s own successes and/or achievements and forming a firm bonding with our fellow believers.
I think God for all the up and downs and bump in the road that have drawn me closer and closer to him. I thank God this day that he blessed by son and his wife with a new baby. That makes me Nana – a new name for me.
I am glad to hear and read of all the ‘glads’ above and am glad for God’s blessings to each one.
Rena, does Nana mean, grandmother? Who named you Nana? And, what is grandfather called? Thinking about it a little maybe Nana means Nanny? New lesson for today!
A lady told me today that her sister told her that she was jealous of her for a good fortune that had happened in her life. It is very sad to hear things like this. I don’t think the lady knew how to handle it from a spiritual view or didn’t act like she did. I believe the lady was really saying, “envious.”
“…jealousy is the fear of losing something that one possesses to another person while envy is the pain or frustration caused by another person having something that one does not have oneself.”
The Bible has this to say:” Envy is a sin of flesh. Envy (evil eye) is among the things that come from the heart, defiling a person. The whole body is full of darkness when the eye, the lamp of body, is bad. Envy ruins the body health because it makes the bone rot and excludes us from inheriting the kingdom of God. Sometimes, as a punishment, God leaves some people in their sins, falling prey to envy and other heavy sins.” I Corinthians 3….
1 Timothy 6.4-5 “envy cannot coexist with true and spiritual wisdom, but with false, earthly, unspiritual, demonic wisdom..”
There is so much more I wanted to express on this issue but let us practice the art of being glad for others and their blessings. I hope we will help others that suffer from Jealousy and Envy to be healed.
I recall Sara expressed quite a bit of helpful information on jealousy in her blog, “Study with Sara-Mirror Mirror on The Wall-Who’s the fairest of us all!” (June 7, 2007) that may be helpful for us to review. One important thing I gleaned from re-reading it was, “If you only read or hear the Word of God, you are practicing and living the ‘law of bondage’ and these seed produces weeds, jealousy, angry and other variegated weeds. But, if you read, hear and do, and DO is the subtle difference between the ‘law of liberty’ and the ‘law of bondage.” This is the practice I think you are referring to…and that can lead to healing.
” But I say, Did not Israel know? First Moses says, I will provoke you to jealousy by [them that are] no people, [and] by a foolish nation I will anger you.!!”
Rom 10:20: But Isaiah is very bold, and says, I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me.
For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images.”
I believe this description of GOD’S Being jealous fits the definition that Sara gave about “jealousy” in “losing something”. In another translation, it says the word jealous is really to be translated “zealous”.
I was thnking in the same vein as in “cultivating gladness” I thought about the blessedness of “cultivating grattitue”. Sara likened it above to “practicing finding the bkessings of gladness for others’blessings. And I thought about “in everything give thanks for this is the will of God concerning you”…that we are always thankful for a success or a victory. And in our little annoyances and problems, especially with others that we should be grateful that we are even alive to experience them. So I want to begin to practice gartitutde for life and the events that happen in my life and in others’ lives that I can be grateful for and not only grateful but to express those grateful feelings of soul and spirit.
I am grateful for this “guest computer” that I can write my thoughts and feeelings on. I am grateful for thedailylily where I can write about the Lord and share. And i am grateful for those who will read and be blessed and for those who will read and disagree. I am grateful…__to be contd.
I am so grateful for the glorious “thedailylily.org” retreat center where we just returned from a moving, to say the least, tree planting. A grove of crepe myrtles was planted by a handful of industrious and diligent lovers of Jesus Christ in preparation for the development of a prayer retreat area. Sara has designed the new field where people will be able come to retreat, pray, praise, remember those who have gone ahead of us into the “cloud of witnesses” and to study the Word of God. “Not by power, not by might, but by MY Spirit says the Lord.” The amazing feat accomplished in two days is a tribute to God and His anointing on the work that He is directing in this area.
I am grateful for the hard labor of love of Debi, Rena, Needles, Chickenfarmer, Wallace, Nicholas and Nathaniel under Sara’s administrative hand . These people worked endlessly and are making a huge contribution to the glorious progress in this project.
Where God’s Spirit is there is peace and already, even in this stage of genesis, the peace that passes understanding to the busy, whirlwind, crazy life that surrounds us, has settled on this anointed land. God’s blessing is on thedailylily.org retreat center.
I am grateful for Sara our visionary and Gary for his strength and support of this work. But most of all, I am grateful to God for allowing me to be but a small part of this new and exciting thing that God is doing. “Behold, I Am doing a New Thing and will it not prosper?” Amen!!! It will!
Cultivate Diligence: How in the world, I asked the Lord, could I do that? The answer to my spirit was pretty clear. “In each and every task, endeavor, deed and labor, do it thoroughly.” But if one is not accustomed to meticulous workmanship in all that one does, then this is truly a challenge and will have to be ‘cultivated’. At each task, approach it with the attitude that I will do my very best and see the task through to the end with detail. Ouch! That hurts! I have friends that are like that. They are truly diligent in what they do. My mother, Sister Grandma was like that and could never understand the ‘free spirit” so to speak of the way I did things. She would point them out to me and train me, continually…’you missed a spot…fold the linens like this….fix your dresser drawers….(hers were always neat).
And those things are very important throughout our lives. But now there are even more important and pertinent things involving the House of the Lord and His work. He says, “whatever thy hand finds to do, do it with all diligence intenseness of spirit, vigour of mind, activity and fervency; doing that which is good, cheerfully and diligently, and not in a negligent careless manner; (Ecc. 9:10) I guess that sums it up pretty well. Now at this time in my life, I will have to cultivate, practice and rehearse “diligence” in the things I do. I will need much help from the Holy Spirit.