Leading Souls to God One at a Time
Good Morning!
God has blessed all of our lives in so many wonderful ways as Christians. Paul reminds us of how truly blessed we are as followers of Christ. In Ephesians 1:3-10 God reminds us all of the ways that Jesus has blessed our lives; "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love 5 He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will 6 to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the One He loves. 7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace 8 that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. 9 And He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ."
WOW!! are we ever blessed. We of all people should have thankful hearts. In our Sunday School class this past week we began to list all the spiritual blessings that we could think of and the list just kept growing. Some of those spiritual blessings were, God's LOVE that he lavished on us in Christ Jesus, the HOPE Christ gives us as an anchor for our soul, the PEACE that passes all understanding; not to mention the SALVATION to eternal life, the GIFT of the HOLY SPIRIT, the promise of God's PRESENCE. No wonder the song writer challenged all of us who call ourselves Christians to "COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS, name then one by one; count your blessing see what God has done." In this short passage of Scripture Paul counts some of the blessing that we each have in Jesus. He names them one by one; 1. God chose us in Jesus before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. 2. God predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, 3. In Jesus we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, 4. God made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Christ, All of these blessing and MORE are ours because we have surrendered of lives to Jesus by faith in Him. God reminds us again and again how He has blessed us and put within us a THANKFUL HEART.
It is out of that thankful heart that we return to God every day in PRAISE to Him from whom all blessings flow. Every Lord's Day, with thankful hearts, we gather around the table of remembrance counting our blessings. We lift up one another in prayer with thankful hearts as we remember your love. The Apostle Paul says to the Christians at Philippi, "I thank my God every time I remember you. 4 In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Thankful hearts can make every morning a GOOD MORNING. Thankful hearts bring us together as few things can as we labor together as PARTNERS in the Gospel.
I want to take this opportunity to thank each of you, who during "Pastor Appreciation Month" in Octo-ber, encouraged Willie and I along with our wives with your many kind words and gifts; but most of all for those of you who told us that you keep us in your prayers every day. We thank you with thankful hearts. God Bless!!
