THANKSGIVING

I am thankful for SS this morning. I missed some of you and hope you had a fabulous holiday. Our theme this morning was - surprise! Thanksgiving.

I Chronicles 16:8-12
Psalm 100:4-5
Psalm 136

The common theme of these verses is the reasons we give thanks to God. One of my reasons was repeated over and over in Psalm 136 - His love endures forever. Anyone who has ever loved anyone has lived with the fear that their love would come to an end. We fear that our parents will not love us if we do something bad enough, we fear that our boyfriend/girlfriend will decide they don't love us anymore, we fear that our children will not love us.

With God we do not have these fears. God was, is, and will always be. His love endures forever. How thankful I am that God isn't going away nor will He ever take His love away from me.

In class we wrote things we are thankful to God for. We then talked about ways we can show our thankfulness to God. Some of the responses were: showing unconditional love to others, patience with others, faithfulness to God, knowledge of God's desire for us, communication with God. We discussed that with continual, open communication with God all other means of expressing our thankfulness fall into place.

My challenge to you now is to write out the personal ways you desire to show God your thankfulness. Be prepared! When you communicate your desire to God, He will go to work to help you make it happen. If your desire is to forgive a person a past wrong and you truly desire this as a gift of thanks to God, God will work in you to help you forgive.

Write out the ways you want to express your thanks to God and then watch as God blesses you in your thankfulness.

Have a blessed week! RC

God's Guidance

Class this morning was great! It's always good to share God's blessings and praise what He has been doing in our lives. As you go through the week remember to focus on God's guidance. As you reflect daily on the events of the day, remember to share with God those moments you wish you had done better or differently. Ask for God's guidance, open your heart to Him. God desires an intimate relationship with you. As you develop the habit of sharing, listening, focusing on God, your relationship grows closer.

Praying God's guidance as you go through your week.

RC

SUCCESS

I watched a great Life Principles video on success this morning. It's very short but very powerful and well worth the time. Enjoy!

http://www.intouch.org/site/c.dhKHIXPKIuE/b.2287431/

Baby Elliott!

Be sure to check out The Elliott's Blog. Baby Abby Nicole came home Friday. Sherylyn has created a dinner list for providing dinner for them this week. If you missed out and would like to take them dinner, call Sherylyn and let her know.

Congratulations Elliott's!

A Sense of Mission

Colossians 3:17 - And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Choose three (3) things you will do in the next 24 hours and describe how you can do them in a way that honors God.

Comment here or bring them to SS next week.

When our mission to glorify the Lord is clear, we cultivate the kind of stamina and perseverance needed for a God-honoring life. There are dangers and difficulties ahead, but the Christian with a focused mission will conitnue pressingonward and upward.

Have a Blessed Week!

SPIRITUAL GIFTS

Sunday School was great this morning as we discussed Spiritual Gifts. If you did not get to participate you can find a link to the Spiritual Gifts Survey and Discovering Your Spiritual Gifts at the left. The study today went through the verses I emailed everyone a week ago. There was a lot of good input from everyone. My favorite was the Mentos in Coke analogy.

If you haven't seen what Mentos does when dropped into Coke check out YouTube and type in Mentos in Coke, it's really cool. Anyway, we decided that we are Coke (or Diet Coke) and God's grace is the Mentos. God gives us the Mentos, I mean gifts, free. We don't do anything to earn it and we don't work for it. Until we take in the grace and the gifts God has given to us we are just Coke. When we allow the Mentos, gifts of grace, to come in and affect us we project that gift onto everyone around us. John warned us not to play grenade with our Coke and Mentos. Ask him about that story.

As you go through the week I pray you talk to God about what gift He has graced you with and how He wants to bless you through your gift.

Have a blessed week!

Spiritual Gifts

For those who made it to SS this morning I hope you learned something about the spiritual gifts you appear to be strongest in. If you didn't make it you can access the Spiritual Gifts Survey and the Discovering Spiritual Gifts by following the link on the left side of the page. I also emailed the .pdf formats of both forms to everyone last week.

Next week we will read and discuss the Spiritual Gifts Study verses. As we continue in this study please take in that God gave each of us gifts that we may fulfill His plans for us. As you discover your Spiritual Gifts ask God how He wants to bless you through your use of the gifts He has given you.

Have a Blessed Week!