A Heart of Gratitude

Psalm 100 Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.  2 Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.  3 Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.  4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.  5 For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.

Thanksgiving is tomorrow and the pumpkin pie is cooling on the counter, the pecan pie is in the oven, and I am overwhelmed by God’s goodness and faithfulness to me.  I have enjoyed reading the posts on facebook as my friends have stopped to thank God for one thing every day in the month of November. I have so much to thank the Lord for this year. 

One of my favorite quotes is “Gratitude fills the heart when the gift has been understood and wonder fills the soul when gratitude is expressed to the fullest.”   R. Zacharias

Psalm 100:4 says “ Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise.”

Gratitude will be followed by wonder as we allow praise to flow to the One who has blessed us. 

It is amazing to me that with God we never reach the end of who He is, but He continually draws us deeper and deeper into His love.  Thanksgiving gets us through the gates but then praise ushers us into His courts.  

Just a Reminder

• The poorest 5% of Americans are richer than 68% of the world’s inhabitants.
• If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep, you are richer than seventy five percent of the people in the world.
• If you can attend a church or synagogue meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death you have the freedom that three billion people in the world do not have.
• At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day.
• Almost two in three people lacking access to clean water survive on less than $2 a day, with one in three living on less than $1 a day.
• Millions of women and children spend several hours a day collecting water.
• Some 1.8 million children die each year as a result of diarrhea caused by unsanitary water.
• In 2005, the wealthiest 20% of the world accounted for 76.6% of total private consumption. The poorest fifth just 1.5%.
• A mere 12 percent of the world’s population uses 85 percent of its water, and these 12 percent do not live in the Third World.
• 10.6 million children died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (same as children population in France, Germany, Greece and Italy).
  
  It is so easy to focus on what we don't have.  I challenge you today to make a list of the top ten ways you are blessed.  

Passwords

Passwords are driving me absolutely and completely crazy!  Every single account I have requires me to come up with a user name and then the dreaded password to protect me.  Protect me from who or what??  I know that there are some really important big wigs who are managing multimillion dollar accounts, doing business that ranks up there with James Bond, or who know top secret information that they would have to kill me if I found out, but come on I don’t even do my banking on line!  Even still I am told not to use the same password for every account because then if my secret password is hacked, I have allowed entry into all of my accounts.  Do I really care if you get into my Pinterest account, my crocs account, or my Mary Maxim account.  Would the world come to an end if you knew my facebook password, my church prayer leader password, or my epatterns password?   None of them have any credit card information on them.  Why does my blog need a secret password?  I thought I wanted people to find my blog.  But I am compliant and scour my little brain trying to come up with some cute little password that I can remember forever.  Now if that was just one password I might be okay, but that is not reality.  I have a lot of accounts and that means I have a lot of those cute little passwords that I thought I would always be able to remember that I have forgotten.  So then to try and remember every password I have ever dreamed up, I am told to be sure I write them down BUT NOT in a word document on my computer.  Oh no!  If someone hacks my computer they now have access to all of my secret private passwords.  So I write down all my super-secret passwords on a plain white piece of notebook paper.  Where is that plain white piece of notebook paper?  I can’t remember!!!!!!!!  When I am even older and even more senile and I am just rambling random words or phrases, write them down because they will  be all those super-secret passwords I have been trying to remember and you will have access to a wealth of prayer and crafting accounts.

.

I will have to say that God frequently makes me laugh and when I read Psalm 89: 15 – 18 I just had to shake my head and laugh. It was one of those ROFL moments.   “Blessed are the people who know the passwords…”  Now that is just funny!!!  After I had ranted and raved because I could not remember a password and then went through the process of resetting the password and finally gaining access to MY account, I read that people who know the passwords are blessed.  God had me hooked so I continued to read.

Ps 89: 15 – 18  Blessed are the people who know the passwords of praise,

who shout on parade in the bright presence of God.

Delighted, they dance all day long; they know

who you are, what you do—they can’t keep it quiet!

Your vibrant beauty has gotten inside us—

you’ve been so good to us! We’re walking on air!

All we are and have we owe to God,

Holy God of Israel, our King!

The not-so secret password that grants me access into the King of Kings is "PRAISE" and God just wrote it down in plain sight in His word for all of us to know.  We are now eight days into November and I have written the password “PRAISE” on my heart and on my mind and just to be safe there is now a lime green post-a-note on my refrigerator (a place I frequent often) that says "PRAISE".  I am praying that we will all remember the not-so-secret password that allows us to enter into the presence of God and all He has to offer.

Tell all your friends that the password is "PRAISE".

Let’s Get Real

There is just something satisfying about having the real thing.  I think any sane person, if and when given the option of having the real thing or a fake, would take the real thing.  The real thing is better quality, more valuable, and to be desired.  Women, given the choice between a real coach purse and a fake coach purse will take the real coach purse and I would have some serious questions about the woman who would not. Maybe you could care less about a coach purse, but if someone is going to give you one – take the real one!  We would rather have a smaller, but real, diamond ring than a great big fake cubic zirconium.  We would rather have an authentic antique than an expensive reproduction.  Real homemade ice cream made with real cream is way better than ice milk! We want the real deal!  We want the definition of real - genuine; not counterfeit, artificial, or imitation; authentic.

So what strange thing grips my mind when I think about myself?  I suddenly lapse into momentary insanity and I am much more likely to desire the fake.  Why do I suddenly think that my fake personality is superior to my real personality?   Why do I think my pretend life is somehow more interesting and better than my real life?  Why do I suddenly choose the fake over the real?  For some reason I am afraid that no one would want the real me.  I am afraid that the genuine me is not good enough and that a fake is somehow better.  Maybe it is because I am listening to the standard the world is giving me as real.  According to their standard, I should be taller, thinner, better educated, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.  So when I can’t come even close to that standard with my real life, I fake one.

In Matthew 16 Jesus asks Peter who people were saying He was and then He presses Peter as to who Peter says He is.  We all remember that Peter then makes the declaration that Jesus is the Son of God.  After Peter declares without hesitation who Jesus is, this is what Jesus says to Peter.

Matthew 16:18a (MSG) And now I’m going to tell you who you are, really are. You are Peter, a rock.

Once I declare Jesus as my Lord, then Jesus tells me who I really am.    According to Jesus the “real” me is loved, accepted, secure, beautiful, indispensable, and so much more. That battle between the fake sold by the world and the real offered by the Lord rages within each of us.  I am tired of settling for the fake and I hope you are too.  I am determined to be real.  The world is a master at marketing fake ID’s and selling us a cheap imitation of who we truly are when Jesus offers the genuine; not counterfeit, artificial, or imitation; authentic real deal. 

“Generally by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby.  But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”  The Velveteen Rabbit

Let’s not wait until our hair is gone, our eyes can’t see, we are loose in the joints and shabby.  Let’s start a movement of living the genuine; not counterfeit, artificial, or imitation; authentic real deal life that Jesus offers us today.  Let's show the world that loved, accepted, secure, beautiful, indispensable, and so much more is way better than anything the world has on the market.