“Open to me the gates of righteousness,
that I may enter through them
and give thanks to the Lord.
This is the gate of the Lord;
the righteous shall enter through it.
I thank you that you have answered me
and have become my salvation.”
Psalm 118:19-21
Tag: Thankful
We Give You Thanks
“Praise be to you, Lord,
the God of our father Israel,
from everlasting to everlasting.
Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power
and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,
for everything in heaven and earth is yours.
Yours, Lord, is the kingdom;
you are exalted as head over all.
Wealth and honor come from you;
you are the ruler of all things.
In your hands are strength and power
to exalt and give strength to all.
Now, our God, we give you thanks,
and praise your glorious name.”
1 Chronicles 29:10-13
All Things New
May your new year be filled with an ever-deepening awareness of the presence of Christ and of rejoicing with Him in all things He is making new!
In the love of Christ,
A Sacrifice of Praise
Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love
and his wonderful deeds for mankind.
Let them sacrifice thank offerings
and tell of his works with songs of joy.
Psalm 107:21-22
No matter our condition or circumstances in life, we have all been given the opportunity be children of the Father of Heaven and Earth through His Son, Jesus Christ. In and through Him we are given access to the very throne room of God. We have been given favor by the Almighty King, the God who owns the cattle on a thousands hills. We have the heart of the God who is the source of all love, the God who has poured out His cornucopia of unlimited blessings on all who turn to Him in faith. He has lavished on us every good thing in faith, joy, peace and His very life which will carry us on forever.
And for that and so much more, we have the privilege of offering up to Him a sacrifice of thanksgiving.
May you be filled to overflowing with the full knowledge of the blessing you’ve received in Him and offer up to our Father a sacrifice of great praise!
Happy Thanksgiving,
Thankful Thursday – Forgiven
“When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.
When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.’
Jesus answered him, ‘Simon, I have something to tell you.’
‘Tell me, teacher,’ he said.
‘Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?’
Simon replied, ‘I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.’
‘You have judged correctly,’ Jesus said.
Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.’
Then Jesus said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven.'” Luke 7:36-48
Nothing gets by Jesus, right? The Pharisee thought he was talking to himself, but Jesus knew what was in his heart: judgement. Legalism never leaves room for love.
He knew what was in the woman’s heart, too: repentance. She came face to face with the Son of God. His glory and grace, in contrast to her sins, brought her to her knees in repentance and humility so much that it spilled out into her actions without a care what people thought. She worshipped Him with all she had.
I’ve been forgiven for much, too. I’ve been called a fanatic for my faith, and by someone who called himself a Christian. But I don’t care. Christ was fanatical about His love for me as He allowed Himself to be arrested, “tried”, and crucified, all for my sins. My only argument with my critic is that I’m not fanatical enough. Christ gave me His life. Is my all too much to give in return? Never.
In His Grace,
Thankful Thursday – Living in the Light
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” 1 Peter 2:9
Over the last couple of months or so God has been speaking to my heart about living in the light, and I don’t think His word is only for me. So throughout the year I’ll be sharing with you some things He’s shown me, and I’m sure will show me, about living in the light, about being a light and about sharing His light with those around you.
Because of certain circumstances throughout my life, I grew accustomed at a young age to rely on myself, and dealing with mounting difficult circumstances alone taught me to keep secrets. By the time I was saved at 26, that way of living had become second nature.
It’s been 25 years since the day Christ shown His light into my heart and life, and yet more and more He’s showing me that my habit of running and hiding when life gets hard hasn’t included hiding from just people. Without really realizing it, I was, to a degree, hiding from God too. I was still in the mode of dealing with much of the pain and circumstances of life on my own.
But through His love and grace and mercy, He’s been coaxing me out from hiding and telling me “It’s okay. I already know how you feel, I already know what you think, and I love you no matter what. I don’t love you as others have. I love you unconditionally, with an all-consuming love, and nothing can take that away.”
The world tells us the opposite: that we have to earn love, and that pursuit can overflow into our relationship with Christ. The enemy works hard to keep us working for love, although he never reveals to us that love can never be earned. In trying to earn it, he dangles love as a carrot that’s always just out of reach. And in trying to conceal God’s love, the enemy also tries to conceal His light.
The thing the enemy doesn’t want anyone to know is that unless we come into the light, allowing our sins to be exposed by talking to our Heavenly Father about our pain, our confusion, our brokenness, and letting Him deal with it all, there can be no healing. satan loves when we keep secrets, when we live in the shadows, because he knows that Christ’s light will offer us forgiveness and will bind up our wounds. That He’ll use them grow us and give us a greater capacity for compassion toward others who are going through their own painful circumstances. satan doesn’t want us to know that our shame and guilt were nailed to the cross along with our sins when we received Christ as Lord and Savior.
But they were, and we are free. We are free to come into the Light.
Some truths are finally moving the long journey from my mind to my heart. As I’m growing in the Lord, I’m growing in His grace, and I’m finally starting to understand what those words mean.
And so, for the freedom to stand boldly with arms raised in the light and love of Jesus, I’m thankful.
The Secret of Contentment
“But godliness with contentment is great gain.” 1 Timothy 6:6
It’s a strange juxtaposition in which we believers find ourselves. We are filled with Spirit of God Himself, bringing heaven down to earth and all the godly riches available to us with such a glorious gift, and yet at the same time we are still on this earth, saddled with these fleshly bodies, so prone to temptation, walking among earthly riches, seeing, smelling, contemplating, desiring…
The flesh and the spirit are at war.
But Paul reminds us that while godliness is good, godliness with contentment is greater. It is gain.
Holidays are supposed to be a joyous time, but they can be especially rough on some who have suffered a loss of some kind. The days when seemingly everyone else is rejoicing can be a magnifier for those losses or unfulfilled expectations.
But a magnifying glass only magnifies that on which we are solely focused. And when we focus the magnifying glass on the world and its temptations, even on those things that aren’t necessarily bad, but God has simply, in His wisdom and grace and mercy, not given them to us, then our focus becomes lust and envy.
We become discontent.
Contentment means we have moved the magnifying glass to focus on our Lord and Savior. We’re focused on Christ and God’s Spirit working in our lives, even through those losses, and have found we have all we need, and even more, to live an abundant life right here and right now.
In Philippians 4:11-12 Paul declared “I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.”
And what is that secret to being content?
He doesn’t leave us wondering; in the next breath he tells us “I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”
No matter what our circumstances, and we are all in some kind of circumstances–don’t let the enemy tell you that everyone else’s life is perfect and yours isn’t—Jesus Christ gives us strength, not just to endure, but to thrive, to be spiritually well-fed and well-clothed, to have all our physical needs met to the glory of His Name, the magnification of His goodness and faithfulness.
In the world there is always something more to want, something more to chase after. Just like we can stuff ourselves silly on Thanksgiving only to be hungry again two hours later, the world will never satisfy. But the overflowing, never-ending, treasure of God will satisfy the soul because that’s what we’re created for.
“And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.” 2 Cor. 9:8
The same word that is “contentment” in 1 Timothy 6:6 is used as “sufficiency” here in 2 Corinthians.
Contentment–magnifying Christ in our hearts and minds–knowing He is sufficient for all our needs and able to work through those difficult or even impossible situations, watching Him move every mound of dirt until our mountain is thrown into the sea, will bring us a satisfaction that no amount of earthly riches ever will.
Contentment means we don’t have to worry about our needs because God’s got it covered. We can come off the sidelines of dismay as we realize the eternal treasures that are ours in the Lord and the strength we receive frees us to carry on, faithfully doing the good work He has carved out for us to do.
In His Good Grace,
How to Pray
Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.” Luke 11:1
It was a wise request, and we would be wise to ask it, too.
So what did the Lord say?
“When you pray, say:
Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us day by day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.”
Luke 11:2-4
A lot of people take this instruction literally, and this is the only prayer they pray. But God doesn’t want us to just recite words; He wants our hearts. Prayer is not getting God to do what we want, but it’s a gracious open door of communication so that God can show us His will and change the rhythm of our hearts to beat with His. Jesus gives His disciples, us included, a peek into God’s heart through this prayer. So let’s unpack it just a little a bit and see how we are to pray.
“When you pray, say:”
This word prayer means worship. Prayer is not a time to jump in, ask for a bunch of things, and leave. It’s a time where we enter into worship of the Most High God.
“Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.”
These two sentences are very telling.
Jesus introduces the radical notion that we have the privilege of calling God our Father. He is closer to us than some impersonal God “way up there.” He loves us as a parent loves a child (and even more) and when we go to Him in prayer we can be assured that He hears us and will provide us with every good thing.
At the same time Jesus reminds us our Father is hallowed, or holy. He is not like our earthly fathers. He is sacred, pure, blameless and righteous. Any fears or emotional baggage we may have because of our earthly fathers do not apply to our Heavenly Father. We can trust Him.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
The word kingdom means rule, a realm or a reign. Now that the Holy Spirit has come, we who have put our faith in Christ have the privilege of knowing God not just from the outside, but from the inside. And to properly worship God in prayer we must continually give Him permission to rule our hearts. It’s so easy to take back the reins, if you will.
As we give our hearts to be a kingdom for God to reside, we’ll want His will, not ours. In heaven everything happens God’s way. There is no sin. It is filled with the glory of God and all He is.
In Isaiah 55:8-9, God tells us “’For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ says the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.’”
God’s thoughts, desires and will, are all so very different, so much higher than our own. And when we pray that God’s will be done here on earth like it is in heaven, that’ll mean He’s going to shake things up a bit, and it’s going to start with changing our hearts. Are you willing to let God do radical things in and through you?
“Give us day by day our daily bread.”
God doesn’t give us what we’ll need tomorrow today. He gives us what we need today today, so we need to go to Him every day.
Not only do we need to get physical bread—food, and even on a broader scale, physical or material needs–but we need spiritual bread.
Most of us would never think of going a day (or even a few hours!) without eating. We need to be spiritually fed as often.
“And Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.’” John 6:35
Jesus is our sustenance. As we remain in Him, He will bless us with everything we need.
“And forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.”
When we hold unforgiveness (or any sin) in our hearts, whether we’re resisting repenting of our own sins or forgiving someone who has sinned against us, we put up a wall between us and God.
“But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.” Isaiah 59:2
Ask God to bring to your mind those things you need to specifically repent of, and the people you need to forgive. There are times that past, hurtful situations come to my mind and it’s easy to sit and stew in the anger all over again. But those are divinely-inspired opportunities to forgive someone who may have slipped from our consciousness, but God knows that anger is creating a root of bitterness, and He brings them to our minds to give us a chance to forgive. We may have temporarily forgotten, but God hasn’t. He knows the destruction it causes in our hearts. Remember, forgiveness is a choice, not a feeling.
“And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”
This literally means to rescue us from the evil one–the one seeks to steal, kill and destroy. We’ve repented of our sins and the last thing we want to do is rush right back into sin through the temptations we face. We need discipline and as we hold onto the Lord, He will give us the strength and courage we need.
The concise way of saying all that is to remember ACTS:
Adoration – praising God for all He is
Confession – repenting of, or turning away from our sin
Thanksgiving – thanking God for all He’s done, all He does and all He will do
Supplication – presenting our needs before the God who owns the cattle on a thousand hills
This is a good guideline to get our hearts right as we enter into worship so we don’t get a case of the “gimmes.” You know, give me this and give me that.
The National Day of Prayer uses this acronym:
Praise
Repent
Ask
Yield.
And just as important as knowing what to say, is knowing how to be silent. To sit before God and let Him speak to our hearts is a precious gift indeed.
God bless you as you pray,
More Than Just Thankful
It was November, 1982 and I was on a Greyhound bus headed for Ohio. I’d be spending the holidays away from my family. I was 19. Two years before I’d been asked to leave home one night and I’d been running ever since. I had a lot to run from, but to where, or who, I didn’t know.
My boyfriend at the time knew a couple there, who, coincidentally or not, pastored a church. How he knew them I have no idea. We drove up their driveway and stayed in their living room for the next month and a half.
If I felt lonely before, I felt even lonelier now. I was almost 2000 miles from home, spending some very cold days in strange house while everybody was off during the day.
Thanksgiving came and went, and the days and nights got even colder.
Something settled in my chest and I couldn’t stop coughing. Nights were the worst, and it was a small house. I lay there night after night, thinking I just might cough up a lung, and all I wanted was for someone to take care of me.
It was Christmas day and we tagged along to the wife’s parents’ house. I sat in the living room staring at the activity, knowing I didn’t belong. I asked to use the phone.
I called home and my little sister answered the phone. I told her where I was and we both started crying. She begged me to come home. I wanted to, but did I belong there? Did I belong anywhere?
My mother got on the phone and tried to convince me she wanted me to come back. She said she’d send the money. I told her I didn’t know. Staying was painful, but going back would be painful, too.
The couple we were staying with had bought a home in town. We began helping them move, and they began dropping hints that once they were in the new house, we needed to find another place to stay.
I supposed it was time to go home, and back on the bus we went.
And I was thankful.
A lot happened in the next six years. There would be a lot more running, but to where, or who, I didn’t know.
There would come a day when I’d find out.
It was a Sunday morning and my husband and I had been invited to church. We took our 6-month-old son, walked through the sanctuary into a tiny gathering of people who met in a few rented rooms in a strip mall, and I found the Lord.
I know people like to say God finds us, but God knew where I was all along. He was with me on the bus and in Ohio. He was with me all the time I was running.
And I’m thankful.
“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” James 1:17
In the world I had only a general feeling of thankfulness, but no one to direct my gratitude to.
Now I am more than just thankful. I know who I have to be thankful to.
I know who was responsible for every sunrise and sunset I continued to see against all odds. I know who walked with me and whose grace and mercy covered me as I roamed the streets of a town I didn’t know. I know who healed me when there were no doctors.
And I know He was with me as I got a job as a front-desk receptionist at a computer company who had a lawyer whose calls I would answer, who would eventually steal me away to be the front-desk receptionist at his law firm, where two women worked who went to church together in a tiny congregation that met in a few rented rooms in a strip mall.
I know it’s God, my God, my Savior and my Lord, who has blessed me with all things. Even when I didn’t know it.
And I’m thankful.