Evangelist Dea Warford

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The following article is a sample of Dea's Daily Email Teachings.

                Be an optimist: Count it all joy!

Word: “Count it all joy.” (James 1:2)

Wisdom: The Lord showed me once that I am too pessimistic. As an evangelist, I am to be a bearer of “good news.” I am not a prophet of doom. I have “good news” for people! My job is to help folks look at things from the positive: to be an optimist; to have optimism about things. Optimism is a secular term for what the Bible calls faith. An optimist is a believer in good things happening.

Are you a believer? Are you an optimist? Or, are you an unbeliever and a pessimist? Do you see the glass half-empty or half-full? Do you see the donut or the hole? When you see lemons, do you think, oh, how sour? Or, oh boy! Let’s add sugar and make lemon-aide! Do you believe beauty is only skin deep? Or do you believe ugliness is “clear to the bone!”

The Bible teaches us to be optimistic: “Have faith in God.” (Mark 11:22). An optimist sees the “optimal” potential in everything.

I was picking up my luggage at the Reno, NV airport. A man was walking around the baggage area dressed colorfully; carrying a bunch of helium-filled balloons.   I thought maybe there was a party going on, so I asked him, “What are you celebrating?” He matter-of-factly replied, (with an eccentric look and inflection to his voice), “I’m celebrating everything!” He was loony, but happy. If that old, eccentric man had reason to celebrate everything, how much more do all Christians?

Today’s devotional verse in James says, “Count it all joy”. How can we possibly count (consider) it all (financial burdens, trials, sicknesses, problems, etc.) joy?   We can only do this if we . . .

1/ Believe what God’s Word says; not what we see or feel:

In Romans 4:17, 18, Paul wrote, “God quickens (makes alive) the dead, and calls those things which are not as though they were.”   God called Abraham a “father of many nations” when he was nearly 100 years old and likely impotent. Our Heavenly Father is an optimist!

I met a man named Rocky back in N.C. who gave a testimony of this truth. His wife was pregnant, but unfortunately had a miscarriage at home. Even though he held it in his own hand and saw the little fetus with his own eyes, he refused to believe what he saw. He quoted the above verse and “called those things which are not as though they were.” He believed his wife was pregnant and would have a baby and continued to call her pregnant.

When the doctors checked her, sure enough, she was still pregnant. They figured she must have had twins but lost one. They tested her, and the results were negative: she had not been carrying twins.   And she soon bore a healthy baby boy! God worked a great miracle! Godly optimism (refusing to believe what was seen or felt) resulted in the dead being quickened to life.

The first three rules of the life of faith are: 1/ Don’t go by feelings; 2/ Don’t go by feelings; and 3/ Don’t go by feelings!     Stop talking and walking what you feel. Talk and walk your faith! “We walk by faith and not by sight.” (II Cor. 5:7).

“Seeing is believing” is the pessimistic way of the world. But Jesus taught, “If you believe, you will see.” (John 11:40).   Faith comes first and afterward the visible results! This is not easy to learn, but is a basic scriptural truth. “We look not upon the things which are seen, but the things which are not seen.” (II Cor. 4:18).   Further, “faith is the . . . evidence (all the necessary proof you need) of things not seen.” (Heb. 11:1). God’s optimists don’t need to see it to believe it!

My wife and I were in Wal-Mart. She had broken her ankle and was in pain; so she had to shop puttering around in a battery operated cart. I happened to be depressed myself that day. (Yes, even us TBN evangelists have bad days! Ha, ha). Kathy was in pain; I was depressed; yet, as we were checking out, the female checker told us, “I believe you are the happiest people I have ever met!” Hallelujah! A believer, even on his worst day, should still be light-years ahead of an unbeliever because of the “joy of the Lord”.

“Happy is that people whose God is the Lord!   (Ps. 144:14). Is God your Lord? If so, then according to this scripture you are happy! So, act like it; look like it; talk like it; and live like it! You can only do this if you, “Count it all joy.”

Prayer: “Father, thank you for being my Lord. Because you are my Lord, I am happy. Let my light shine before men as I celebrate this truth through every difficulty.”

Confession: “Today, I count it all joy.”