Overflowing Thankfulness

The traditional time of Thanksgiving has arrived. Families will be gathering and giving an extra little smile, bellies will be full from eating too much food, and hopefully there will be a pause in the rat race of life and joy can be found in what blessings we do have instead of things we do not. For this weeks devotional entry I took a few of the main points out of a recent teaching the Lord prompted me to give to our new church family at Hillside. I hope you are encouraged and challenged in your reading. My prayer is that God blesses you and that your heart will overflow with thankfulness during this holiday.

Before we come to our scripture it is important that we all arrive on the same page and discuss what the word thanksgiving means.

Main Entry: thanks·giv·ing
Function: noun
1 : the act of giving thanks
2 : a prayer expressing gratitude
3 a public acknowledgment or celebration of divine goodness

The meaning of this word falls apart if we leave it as a noun and do not make it a verb in our lives.

Today, we are going to begin in Colossians 2 and then focus on tangible goals that we can set in acting out thankfulness.

Colossians 2:6-8
So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

For a moment let’s talk about what it means to overflow...

To be thankful gives the connotation that we simply fill a glass to the top and if someone happens to bump into it then maybe they will get wet and experience what is inside, but then scripture takes it a step further- we must be overflowing with thankfulness.

What does this mean?

How does this work in our society?

How do we do this in a world that seems to be pointing the other direction?

Let’s take our scripture and turn it upside down

• If you want to overflow with thankfulness…
• Be strengthened in your faith as you were taught…
• Continue to live in him…
• Be rooted and built up in him…
• Receive Christ Jesus as Lord!

Being thankful is that warmness and the overflowing is that warmness touching others if they are around you!

Different ways that this can be played out…
1. Using my actions
• How we react
• Who we help
• Who we don’t help
• What we give to
• What we don’t

2. Using my words
• What we say
• What we don’t say

3. Using my attitudes
• How we say it
• How we allow our feelings to affect our demeanor

4. Using my decisions
• Every day we have decisions to turn left or right that can potentially shift our lives forever
Marriage
Jobs
Kids
Relationships

5. Using my time
• People fill their day with all types of things
• Christmas Outreach
• Doing the dishes
• Giving a back massage
• Listening instead of talking



Max Lucado devotional - Saying “Thank You”

Thank the Lord because He is good. His love continues forever. Psalm 106:1

Worship is when you’re aware that what you have been given is far greater than what you can give. Worship is the awareness that were it not for his touch, you’d still be hobbling and hurting, bitter and broken. Worship is the half-glazed expression on the parched face of a desert pilgrim as he discovers that the oasis is not a mirage.

Worship is the “thank you” that refuses to be silenced. We have tried to make a science out of worship. We can’t do that. We can’t do that any more than we can sell “love” or “negotiate peace.” Worship is a voluntary act of gratitude offered by the saved to the Savior, by the healed to the Healer, and by the delivered to the Deliverer.

Looking Into the Eyes of Your Blessing

Why is it so easy to rejoice one day about the situation that is unfolding before you and then find that the next day the joy is not as easy to find and has been replaced by anxiety and fear? Maybe I am the only one who walks in this schizophrenia, but I have a feeling that if we were each evaluated for this diagnoses that there would not be enough white rooms available to hold us. I must say that at this moment we have seen more love and care then we have ever expected from those who have linked arms with in Reno, NV. The feelings that flow through me of fear and anxiety stream directly from my inability to keep focused and to trust in the Lord and His plans. I hope that as we look at God’s word together and find some answers for our humanity that not only I can refocus, but also that it will help you the next time you feel that blood pressure raising and your mind start wandering.

I entitled this devotional “Looking into the Eyes of Your Blessing”, because the feeling in my stomach reminds me of a feeling that I had when I was younger and was talked into walking a tight rope that was about 50 feet high. I was in high school and when I first looked at the challenge I was not worried at all. That was until I actually was standing up on the rope. They had me strapped in and there was no way that I could get hurt, however, that did not change all of the imaginary ways that I was about to die. I walked about half way out and then made the biggest mistake and looked down. All of a sudden many parts of my physical body began to shut down (some of them should not be written down). The person on the other side of the tight rope kept yelling at me to not look down, but that I should look them in the eye and they would help me make it to the end. It seemed to take a lifetime for me to convince myself to take my eyes off of the ground below. As I changed my focus from the ground to the person standing at the end of the obstacle, I was able to put one foot in front of the other and complete what seemed to be impossible. We have the option today to look at the difficulties before us and allow them to freeze our faith or we can look at the Lord and the many blessings that He has provided and allow them to give us hope to make to the end.

Here are some thoughts from some of Bible heroes when they faced their own tight ropes and needed to find creative ways to stay focused.

Joseph
Genesis 39:2
The Lord was with Joseph and he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master.

Joseph had every reason to become bitter and focus on fear instead of His God. The Bible tells us that wherever Joseph found himself that the Lord was with him and gave him favor. For a good portion of his life he played the role of a slave and a prisoner. This is strange to focus on God’s favor while we look at a man who has been stripped of so much, but it was through those years that the Lord prepared him for a much larger task. Joseph focused on the blessing of God being by his side instead of the fear of his surroundings.

David
Psalm 27:4
One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.

David is our classic schizophrenic. He goes from trusting the Lord with everything he is to asking the Lord why He has left him. In the end of his songs and conversations with the Lord he always runs back to the Lord and resubmits to believing and following in his God. This particular scripture is placed between some of David’s own life difficulties.

Verse 3 speaks of an army attacking him and war coming against him and verse 5 speaks about when the day of trouble coming. David focused on God’s beauty instead of the circumstances surrounding him.
Apostle Paul
Philippians 3:13-15
Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.

Each time I read about Paul and his focus on the Lord and the task and purpose that the Lord has given him, I find myself inspired to follow in his shoes. One of the most difficult tight ropes that we face is not our future but our past. Paul chose to focus on God and the prize of eternal salvation instead of being frozen with fear over his past.


Dear Lord,

Help my life be a testimony of a man who was able to keep his gaze on you during each season of life that unfolds before him. I would ask that you cure me of my schizophrenia, but I am learning that it is this very problem that keeps me running to you. So I accept the condition as a part of my personal war and as the reminder of how badly I must run to you on a daily basis to surrender. Thank you for walking with me each step of my tight rope and I commit to keeping my eyes focused on you.

Amen