Gratitude

Gratitude

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Sent: February 21, 2009 9:39 AM

"The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings."
-Eric Hoffer

According to legend, a young man while roaming the desert came across a spring of delicious crystal-clear water. The water was so sweet he filled his leather canteen so he could bring some back to a tribal elder who had been his teacher. After a four-day journey he presented the water to the old man who took a deep drink, smiled warmly and thanked his student lavishly for the sweet water. The young man returned to his village with a happy heart.

Later, the teacher let another student taste the water. He spat it out, saying it was awful. It apparently had become stale because of the old leather container. The student challenged his teacher: "Master, the water was foul. Why did you pretend to like it?"

The teacher replied, "You only tasted the water. I tasted the gift. The water was simply the container for an act of living-kindness and nothing could be sweeter."

Self-motivation without gratitude is impossible. Our energy is "sapped" when our entire focus is on what's wrong instead of what is right with our lives. One of our greatest challenges is to live and love in spite of pain and disappointment...to find gratitude in the midst of it all.

Reflect for a moment on this beautiful quote from Melody Beattie:

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow."

The Stripes of Jesus

But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our guilt and iniquities; the chastisement needful to obtain peace and well-being for us was upon Him, and with the stripes that wounded Him we are healed and made whole.

The "STRIPES" Jesus took for YOU is healing for whatever you need.

God-Minded Love

The Love we have will cause us to stick together!

The Love from our Heavenly Father will never change ~~~ For it goes beyond our human understanding & reaches beyond race, color, religion, and last throughout eternity!

If we can come to Jesus as a little child with such simple Faith then he will meet us just where were at and extend his Grace, Love, & help us to become more like him as we are on this road of life!

AT LAST!

AT LAST, MY LOVE WE WILL LET OUR LOVE SHINE…..

THE EARLY TIME IN OUR YOUTH DID ELAPSE…..

LIFE’S EARLY HOUR IS IN THE PAST........

BUT OUR LOVE WE MOURN NO MORE FOR THOSE YEARS;

FOR THIS BLESSED HOUR ATONES FOR ALL THOSE YEARS!

OUR LOVE HAS COME OUR WAY AGAIN, AT LAST……

WE WILL LIVE TOGEATHER FOR THE FUTURE, AND NOT THE PAST…….

FOR THIS IS A BLESSING FROM OUR GOD UP ABOVE……

TO LIVE AND BRING GLORY TO HIS SON!

FOR JESUS IS THE LORD OF OUR LIFE, AND NOW, WE CAN LOVE, AT LAST!

Burn For Jesus

We are the army of Christ Jesus and we are at war!

Most people today have “the plague of entertainment”

This is where we are more consumed with an entertainment lifestyle than being consumed with the “Glory of God” And basking in His “Presence”.

This is a very dangerous place to live, and this is the tool satan uses. For the deceptions of this world can come in and consume our thinking, our time, our money, and most of all pulls us away from that very place of serving God!

We all need to get out of our comfort zone and become on fire and burn for Jesus.

Deuteronomy 4:24

For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

Has the fire gone out in your life? We should have the demonstration of the power of God in our lives.

We should not be afraid, or be ashamed. We need to stir up what is inside of us. “Kindle the flame.”

If we become complacent and are no longer on fire we will then be in the smoke. In the natural smoke kills! In the spirit it also kills.

Are you living wrong? Get right! If you don’t get right you will get “left” behind.

2 Corinthians 7:1

THEREFORE, SINCE these [great] promises are ours, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that contaminates and defiles body and spirit, and bring [our] consecration to completeness in the [reverential] fear of God.

Acts 2:1-4

AND WHEN the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all assembled together in one place,

When suddenly there came a sound from heaven like the rushing of a violent tempest blast, and it filled the whole house in which they were sitting.

And there appeared to them tongues resembling fire, which were separated and distributed and which settled on each one of them. And they were all filled (diffused throughout their souls) with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other (different, foreign) languages (tongues), as the Spirit kept giving them clear and loud expression [in each tongue in appropriate words].

So my challenge today is, stir yourself up in the “Holy Ghost” become on fire for Jesus and “burn” for him. Let there be a burning within that no man can put out. And let the fire (light) within you put out (pierce through) the darkness in the world. Become an all consuming fire for Jesus so that many will come into the saving (knowledge) grace of the almighty God!

Now this is the will of God in Christ Jesus!

2009

Diana Houk
January 9, 2009

The more clearly we understand our own life, the more clearly we will own our own destiny!

As we look clearly at our life with the understanding of where we’re at and take charge of our own destiny with the power of the cross!

We have a “franchise” to own our “Will”~~~~~We have a heavenly Father who is the “Corporation” who has designed the rules for us to follow~~~if we do follow the rules we have ‘benefits”. If we don’t follow the rules we are cursed with a curse & have no benefits.

To say it again:
We have “Title Deed” “Ownership” to our own life to choice today to follow in the way God designed our lives to go.

To walk in his ways are to bring the “blessings” into our life and to have the peace, & Joy of God ruling & reigning within.

Jesus holds my hand in 2009!

Diana Houk
January 3, 2009

As we say good-bye to 2008, let us not carry regrets forward,
let us not dwell on "what could have been,"
let us not project ourselves into 2009 with "what ifs."

Let us place ourselves in the Hands of God, holding to
the Promise of His Everlasting Love.

No matter what 2009 holds, we know Who holds us.
Let us hold to 2 Timothy 1:7, "For God hath not given me
the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."

Do not let satan rob us of our Joy! Each time he
rears his ugly head, face him and say,
"...for I know Whom I have believed, and
am persuaded that He is able to keep
that which I have committed unto
Him against that day."~~~2 Timothy 1:12

So come on 2009! I will follow my Jesus, wherever He Leads.
He will give me Strength, and Courage to KEEP ON GOING.

UNTIL HE COMES IN THE CLOUDS OF GLORY!

LOVE & PRAYERS!