Verse Of The Week (11/27/15)

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                                Bless the LORD, O my soul, 
                                   and all that is within me, 
                                      bless His holy name.
                                             (Psa. 103:1)

My Prayer (11/25/15)

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I'm thinking about -- of all things, right? -- Thanksgiving.  I can't count my blessings.  What if I forget one?  What if I forget a hundred or more?  That's  quite likely.  While I can't count my blessings, I can begin to count.  My conclusion?  I'm more blessed than I can ever realize.  There are blessings of which I have no awareness or little recollection.

Thank You, Father of Lights, for every good and perfect gift You send (Jam. 1:17) -- those past, present and future.  You don't bless me because You have to.  You bless me because you want to. Keep me looking at You, not looking for the next blessing.  Today, I bless You (Psa. 103:1; 134:2). May Your Name be praised in each breath I take.

Challenges & Conversations (11/17/15)

Hooray for Nordstrom's!  Why?  Check it out here.

"We feel strongly about celebra-
ting one holiday at a time . . ." 
(Dan Evans, company spokesman)

Thanksgiving is too precious and valuable of a holiday --historically, nationally, personally, spiritually -- to have any of its significance and perspective overshadowed by gift shopping.

Most of us don't need more time to buy more stuff.  What we need is more time to appreciate all the stuff we already have.

Thank you, Nordstrom's, for not bowing to the pressure.  If you want to e-mail or call Nordstrom's and voice your support, go here.

My Prayer (10/14/15)

"Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful." (Col. 315, NASB)

Lord, I want to be more thankful.  Please help me to go all 24 and form a complaint-free day. Without the expert tutelage of Your Holy Spirit, I won't make it one hour.  Position me to see the good in all that I will encounter today.  Once I see the good, may I remember to give You thanks for it. Please forgive my laziness, through which I am quick to complain or criticize.

What Can We Do? (Psa. 116)

You wish you could repay God for all His goodness (Psa. 116:12; 103:1-5, 10-12), but you know you cannot.  Is there anything you can do?  Yes!  God doesn't take cash, but He will consider MasterCard or Visa.

1.  MasterCard:  You can continue to acknowledge and praise Him.

2.  Visa:  You can continue to call on Him and remain dependent.

Observations:

• You are more blessed than you realize.
• You are blessed more often than you realize.
• The more you realize how much you are blessed, the more you need to give thanks and remain dependent. With blessing comes responsibility.  

The Power of Simple Thanksgiving

"Consider the power of simple thanksgiving.  Its genius is its prerequisite:  humility, which is essential to a proper relationship to God.  Paul asks, 'What do you have that you did not receive?' The answer is nada, nothing -- absolutely nothing whatsoever.  Everything we have is a given, not a gotten.  We enter the world naked, we exit the world naked.  All we have in between is on loan.  It's humiliating!  Precisely.  Then the apostle asks, 'And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?' (1 Cor. 4:7).  In other words, what grounds do you have for pride?  Same answer:  nada, nothing -- absolutely nothing whatsoever.  So 'gratitude is a species of justice,' writes Samuel Johnson, meaning that when we genuinely say thanks to God, we are seeing things as they actually are, and humbly giving credit where credit is due.

 To be ungrateful is to see things as they are not, to have a perspective that is fundamentally and fatally distorted.  Such is the view of the proud who see all that they have and are as a gotten, not a given."

Patterson, Ben.  Deepening Your Conversation With God:  The Life-Changing Power of Prayer.  The Pastor's Soul Series.  Ed. David L. Goetz.  Minneapolis, MN:  Bethany House Publishers, 1999.  pp. 88-89.

Happy Thanksgiving (Still)

Yesterday, of course, was Thanksgiving Day.  You know what?  Today should be one too!  And tomorrow.  Every day.  Below are some good tweets and quotations about thanksgiving.

• @BishopGaryEarls: #Thanksgiving Is Required of God’s People. 1 Chron. 16:8; Col. 3:15; Heb. 12:28. Be #thankful.
• @NancyDeMoss: #Gratitude is a lifestyle. A hard-fought, grace-infused, biblical lifestyle.
• @PaulTripp: Your thankfulness today is directly related to your admission of how grave your plight is as a sinner. Self-righteousness crushes gratitude.
• @Coop_lifecenter: We would worry less if we praised more. #Thanksgiving is the enemy of discontent and dissatisfaction.
• @leadershipology: "You cannot be GRATEFUL and negative at the same time! Gratefulness is the antidote for the cancer...called negativity!
• Don't just count your blessings. Make your blessings count. (paraphrase @Delsmith) #Thanksgiving
• #Gratitude is similar to electricity: it must be produced & discharged & used up in order to exist. -- William Faulkner
• @BruceVH: The weeds of bitterness cannot grow in a heart that is fertilized with #thankfulness.
• Choose the 'tude. Gratitude, that is. #Thanksgiving
• @ChristianPost: The History of the #Thanksgiving Holiday: http://bit.ly/1cwuNt5
• @malphursgroup: #Thankfulness is better caught than taught.
• "O for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer's praise..."
• "I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that #gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder."-- G. K. Chesterton
• @maurydavis: #Thankfulness must become a habit because circumstances won't always support a thankful spirit.

Brevity, Bitterness and Blessing (Gen. 47:9-10)

By his own admission, Jacob had a short and hard life.  However, he blessed Pharaoh, the current authority in his life.

God is (or should be) the authority in your life.  Bless Him at all times, even when circumstances are less than ideal and even when you don't get all you wanted out of life.

Psa. 34:1.

Grateful for the Heat

Here in the northeast, we're getting absolutely blistered! In Western New York, we're a bit more fortunate. It only feels like high 90's. It's hot, for sure, but still tolerable. I'm grateful that we don't get too many of these days in one year.

I've been asking people, "How are you beating the heat?" Each response made me realize how blessed we really are.

• "I'm staying inside." Praise God you have a house to enter. So many people in the world don't.
• "I'm staying in front of the air conditioner." Even if your house doesn't have central air, perhaps you have one or two rooms you cool with air conditioners. If so, praise God you have an air conditioner. There are people in the world who wouldn't recognize an air conditioner. Even if they knew what it did, they couldn't afford one.
• "I'm parked in front of my fan." Praise God you have a fan or two. Praise God you have access to electricity to power your fans.
• "I'm pretty much living in my pool." Praise God you have a pool. Praise God you can afford the electricity to run the pump and filter. Praise God you can afford the chemicals. Praise God you can afford the water bill.
• "I'm hanging out in the mall where it's cool." Praise God you live in a country with so many malls. Praise God the owners let you just sit there.

We have a choice: complain about the heat or rejoice in our blessings. (For those complaining about the heat, remember...mid-January is coming.)

Thanks for the No Snow

Supposed to get ready for 2-5 inches. High winds to create near whiteout conditions. In Lockport, neither happened last night. Barely a dusting. (Hey, that's one plowing we don't have to pay for.) No lost power. Two bright sides from a potentially dangerous situation.

This is a good lesson in not letting things become bigger in our minds than they really are. Even when you're faced with all the facts, figures, maps, and predictions. In other communities, the storm delivered. Here in Lockport, it wasn't as bad as advertised. Not even close.

1 Thess 5:18; Phil 4:6.