Eucharisteo - Thanksgiving - Always Precedes the Miracle!

Non-Eucharisteo, ingratitude, was the fall - humanity's discontent with all that God freely gives.  We only enter into the full life if our faith give thanks.  Thanksgiving is the evidence of our acceptance of whatever He gives.  Thanksgiving is the manifestation of our YES! to His grace.  Thanksgiving is inherent to a true salvation experience; thanksgiving is necessary to live the well, whole, fullest life.

Psalm 50:23 - "He who sacrifices thank offerings honors me, and he prepares the way so that I may show him the salvation of God."

Thanksgiving - giving thanks in everything - prepares the way that God might show us His fullest salvation in Christ.  Thanksgiving - giving thanks in everything - is what prepares the way for salvation's whole restoration.  Our salvation in Christ is real, yet the completeness of that salvation is not fully realized in a life until the life realizes the need to give thanks.  In everything?

With memories of gravestones, hospital beds and smoking towers on television, I wonder....does the tear in the canvas of our life backdrop, the losses that puncture our world, our own emptiness, might actually become places to see...to see through to God.  Those situations that tear open our souls, those holes that spatter our sight, may actually become the thin, open places to see through the mess of this place to the heart-aching beauty beyond...to Him...to God whom we endlessly crave.

Yes...Yes...Yes...That is what I want! but do I want it deeply enough to truly give thanks in everything?  Not just pretending to be thankful, but really, deeply, thankful.  Being in that place where giving thanks is in the same category as breathing...second nature, something I don't have to give thought to, it just happens.

Can we truly achieve this? Are we capable of looking so far past our own circumstances that we can actually be thankful for the sorrow, the broken heart, the physical pain.  Would that be the Miracle...to be fully removed from self?

My prayer is that each day my transformation to this state of truly, fully thankful brings me closer to the image of Christ that I aspire to reflect. 

Butterflies!!!

Today a little off the general outline for my blog...but hey it's my blog, right?  I LOVE Butterflies!!! and I want to tell you why...you know how when you are going through tough times you look for any little sign that God is there walking it with you...well that's when God gave me a sign, Butterflies!  He opened my eyes to the similarities between me (us as Christians) and butterflies. 

We can crawl around in the dirt and filth of this world, always struggling, or we can let him wrap us up in His love, like a cocoon.  Do you know how butterflies get there beautiful colors? While they are wrapped up in their cocoons they consume there waste and their body transforms what was eaten and discarded as worthless into beauty. 

When we accept Christ as our Lord, Savior and King we do the same thing; he wraps us up in His love and takes the "crap" that we have in our lives and the mistakes we have made and turns them into something beautiful...FOR HIS GLORY, not ours...

Sooo...now every time you see a butterfly stop and say a prayer of thanksgiving that like that butterfly you have been given a change to change from something ugly and unworthy into something chosen and precious that has the opportunity to bring glory to our savior through your beautiful transformation into a "little Christ", after all that is what "Christian" means.....

Eucharisteo - Thanksgiving in Everything!

Giving Thanks...Jesus set the example for us..."And he took bread, gave thanks (eucharisteo) and broke it, and gave it to them..." (Luke 22:19).  The root word of eucharisteo is charis, meaning "grace".  Jesus took the bread and saw it as "grace" and gave thanks.  He took the bread and knew it to be "gift" and gave thanks. 

Eucharisteo, thanksgiving, includes the Greek word for grace, charis, but it also holds its derivative, the Greek word chara, meaning "JOY"...Ah..yes I might be needing some of that today (and tomorrow and the next day, etc...)  Has this been the goal of a fuller life, to find JOY...in everything?

Deep chara joy is found only at the table of the enCHARisteo - the table of thanksgiving.  Do I want to sit down at that table?  It would mean complete submission, giving complete control of myself to my savior and accepting every event, good or bad, with thanksgiving.

Is the height of my chara joy dependent on the depths of my eucharisteo thanks?  Is it really that simple???  That's what scripture tell us, "giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.." (Eph 5:21)

Soooo, if it's that simple what makes it so hard to do???  Oh yeah, we're made up of sinful flesh, that is kept alive by our pride...yes pride...that's the monster under the bed. 

Today my goal is to keep the monster locked in the closet so that I can look at everything with eyes tinting with thanksgiving; I want more chara JOY today...tonight when I close my eyes I want to be able to smile and say "Today was NOT all about me"!

His "Secret" Purpose for Your Life

"His secret purpose framed from the very beginning (is) to bring us to our full glory"
(1 Corintians 2:7 NEB)

Wow!! A "secret" purpose, just for me, from the very beginning, just for me? He means to rename us - to return us to our true names, our truest selves, to our full glory.  He means to heal our "Soul Holes".   I certainly have "Soul Holes"...so how do I help Him heal me?  Did I say "help" Him?  There's the first problem, my pride acknowledges that I need His help, and yet I belittle his soverighty by suggesting that he needs my help to do anything.  I should say what can I do that will "allow" him to heal me?  And there it is...I must allow Him to be in charge, to be in control.  He means to fill us with glory, with glory and grace!

Grace, it means "favor", from the Latin gratia.  It indicates a free and ready favor.  It's one thing to choose to take the grace offered at the cross, but choosing to live as one filling with His grace?  Choosing to be filled with all that He freely gives and fully live-with glory and grace and God?

Do I really want to choose to say Yes? Choosing to say yes to what He freely gives, no matter what it is. 
Lost loved ones, financial ups and downs, disrespectful children, untrustworthy friends, persecusion for being a follower of Christ...He freely gives...even these things...do I except everything He gives, can I choose to filter what I want to receive?  I don't think so...with memories of funerals, lost friends and loved ones, I wonder if the "Sole Holes" in the canvas of our lives, the losses that puncture our world, our own emptiness, might actually become places to see...to see through to God.

Those tears that we shed, tears that open our souls, tears that splatter our sight, might they actually be the thin, open places to see through the mess of this place to the heart..to Him..to the God whom we endlessly crave?  Maybe...How do I give up resentment for gratitude, gnawing anger for spilling joy?  Self-focus for God-communion.  To fully live-to live full of grace and joy and all this is beauty eternal...It is possible...

And so the Dare begins....Choosing Joy is up to Me!!!!

Beginning The Adventure!

Hmmm...where to begin? This is a new adventure for me, but I am weary of wrestling with that little voice that is telling me "Do It!".  I will begin by saying this is all because of a great book I have started reading called "One Thousand Gifts - A Dare to LIVE FULLY Right Where You Are" by Ann Voskamp.  It has really enlightened me to a truth in God's word which I had not previously fully understood.  The purpose of this Blog will be to share my "Ahaaa" moments and insights with anyone who is interested in learning about this great truth along with me and sharing my peaks and valleys as I attempt to put this new found knowledge into action in my daily walk with my Savior.