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Invitations to Thanks Giving

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All good things can be traced back to Christ.  The ultimate source of everything for which we should give thanks is God’s grace rooted in Christ.  Undeserved gifts from God.

But just how much grace is yours?  Well, if you are a child of God, the dimensions of God’s grace lavished on you is staggering!  Ephesians 2:7 indicates one of heaven’s never-ending activities will be to examine the incomparable riches of God’s grace that Christ purchased for you!  While this insight should open the door to countless newly discovered blessings and a myriad of invitations to thank God, we can unpack God’s grace even further when we consider it’s chronological dimensions.

God’s grace poured out on you has PAST, PRESENT, and FUTURE expressions to it!  Isaiah 53 touches on elements of God’s PAST grace given to you thousands of years ago!  2 Corinthians 12:7-10, Philippians 4:13 and 1 Peter 5:7 touch on a few aspects of God’s PRESENT grace that is available to you today!  Finally, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and Revelation 21-22 hint at the incredible FUTURE grace that awaits Christ-followers!

Our lives have been, are, and will be soaked with God’s incomparable grace!  I’m hoping we all have a “Thank you Jesus” Thanksgiving this year!

Afraid, But Not Enough

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A few years ago we built an enclosed storage area near our house.  Not long afterward I was moving things around looking for something when this unpleasant thought crossed my mind: “Snakes would probably like to nest in this space!”  While I had never seen a snake, or any evidence of one in this area, just the possibility of it would quicken my heart rate, and my rummaging speed, every time I opened the door!blackratsnake040924-1479gate10z

It wasn’t too long before I decided I should do something to minimize the potential of encountering a slithering reptile in my storage area!  So after doing some research on the various methods and products available for repelling these repulsive creatures, I purchased a granular snake repellent at a local hardware store.

Now all I had to do was to spread the repellent around the walls of the storage space.  It was guaranteed that snakes would not cross it.  I immediately thought of two concerns: First, I would have to move all the items in storage away from the walls so that I could pour out the repellent as directed.  But what if I already had snakes hiding in the stuff I would be moving?  I wasn’t too excited about the idea of moving things around and raising the ire of any snakes that may have already made my storage area their home!

Secondly, what if I had snakes living in the center of the storage area?  I might not disturb them while moving the stuff around the perimeter, but what if the repellent ended up keeping them from escaping my building?  Worse, what if the repellent infuriated them to the point that my hypothetical snakes became more aggressive than normal?

A few days ago I noticed my snake repellent container sitting in a corner of my storage area.  I had never opened it!  I had feared snakes enough to buy the repellent, and to store it in my storage area, but I didn’t fear the slithering reptiles enough to use the repellent as directed!  Bottom line: Unless snakes can read what it says on the container, I might as well set out a liter of Dr. Pepper!

Before you take me to task on my vacillation, let me suggest this is a fairly common trait among us humans!  If not so much in buying snake repellents, I see it often in “buying fire insurance.”  It’s a term some folks use to describe doing religious practices intended to appease God and avoid hell.  Token activities like merely going to church, coming down to the altar, repeating a rote prayer, or even being baptized will not “buy” anyone anything!

If we really want to repel snakes, we are going to have to go all-in and follow the directions wholeheartedly having faith it will work!  Accordingly, if we want to appease God and avoid hell, we are going to have to go all-in and follow Jesus wholeheartedly having faith He will work!

 

Where Are You Going?

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flight planning on chart           You will never get lost if you always know where you are and where you are going!  I used that statement often when I taught flying.  After all, present position is a simple extension of where one has been in the past, combined with the direction and speed one has traveled since the last known position.

For instance, pilots always know the airport they are departing from.  And as long as they kept track of their time in flight and the direction and speed they were heading, then they would always know their approximate position, even if they couldn’t always pinpoint it on a map.

Then each time they could positively identify their present position on the map, the navigating process would start all over again.  They were always a given number of minutes away from their last known position, and they had been flying a given direction and speed.  So even when they were in between positive identifications of their location on a map, they still had an approximate idea of where they were, and where they were going.

Unfortunately my students didn’t always know how the winds aloft would affect their direction and speed, and because they often wandered from their desired heading, they would get off course.  But once they determined how much they were off course, I would teach them how to make course corrections to get them back on course to ensure they would reach their ultimate destination; before running out of fuel.  Obviously, everything they were doing before the flight and during the flight, should be a means to getting them safely to their destination airport!

Have you ever been lost?  Do you know where you came from?  Do you know where you are?  Do you know where you are going?  Can you get where you want to go on the direction you are presently traveling?  If you want to go to the Atlantic Ocean, you must proceed on an easterly course.  If you are heading on a westerly course, you will never make it!

Some people tell me they want to go to heaven, yet they want to get there maintaining a  misguided course.  Sadly, if their present course is not heading in heaven’s direction, they will never make it!  They must make a course correction before they run out of fuel, or miss heaven forever.  Since heaven is God’s home, He alone has the prerogative to advise us on the required course to get there.

The only course that will take you to heaven is to aim for Jesus Christ!  He said that He was the only way to the Father, and the only way to the Father’s eternal home in heaven.  Reaching heaven will only be by God’s grace, through your faith in God’s Son alone.  Are you heading the wrong direction, or just off course?  Since your fuel is limited, get on course today by turning from anyone or anything, to Jesus alone!