This whole past week I've had blessings on the mind. Preparing for a sermon for the weekend after thanksgiving will do that to you I guess. Anyways, looking at all the blessings we have as Christians and as Americans I was overwhelmed with the question of how we look at the glass of our life - is it half full or half empty with God's blessing?
I mean we live in America, where we stuff ourselves with turkey and call it a holiday. We have stores who compete against each other to open just that little bit earlier so everyone can rush in to shop for black Friday on the day before (Gray Thursday?). We even have commercials of crazy middle-aged women who apparently had a bad experience last year shopping and are convinced they need to condition like someone competing in the Iron Man so they don't pull a muscle this year and miss out on all the deals (here's looking at you Target).
Don't get me wrong I'm all for getting good deals and making the most of our money as God's stewards. But seriously, in America we're conditioned to ask the wrong questions. Is my glass half empty or half full? I think if we as Christians see our glass as anything other than overflowing, we're looking at it from the wrong perspective. God has blessed us immeasurably with Jesus' sacrificial and saving love on the cross. Everything else is icing on the cake, and he wants us to share the cake with others. Our lives should be so filled with Christ's love that we're literally overflowing with it!
So, what's your glass look like this Thanksgiving?
My cup most definitely runneth over! Great post Micah :)
ReplyDeleteTwo non-Rob posts back to back? That's awesome!
ReplyDeleteI'd like to hear more about your sermon Micah. What was it titled?
Soooo easy to focus on negatives. We become so accustomed to the 'everyday variety' of assets, advantages and blessings we have that we fail to even recognize them. Self-inflicted blindness. What's the cure? Steve has been talking lately about the life of a Samurai. He said one way Samurais are so effective in battle is that they consider themselves dead already. So there's nothing to lose. Full tilt, to the hilt. Aren't we to consider ourselves that way too? Living sacrifices? Dead to self? And if so, how would that change our view of life, our attitudes and our actions? Maybe we'd find joy in the fact that we have a car, or food, or clothes. Find joy in the deepening of our relationships. Find joy.
The sermon was "What Compels You?" and the link is my Facebook status right now. That's awesome about the samurai, I remember having heard that before, but it fits really well with some ther things I'm thinking about in light of death to self...orthefact that we were already dead in sins, and Jesus died to meet us there and bring us to life (thinking about doing a sermon called The Walking Dead ;)
ReplyDeleteGlad to post, thanks for inviting me to! I even got a picture in there :)
Love it.
ReplyDeleteMicah's sermon link http://www.salinaheights.com/listen.cfm?list=358603wp&id_music=440