Sunday 21 August 2016

Bless the Lord


“Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace, whereby we may offer service.” Hebrews 12:28 

Gratitude is an interesting concept and one that is gaining favour both in the secular and spiritual world.  

Being grateful changes our brain chemistry, we are less stressed, more focused on the positive – we are healthier.

Yet many Christians live in a state of fear, they are afraid that they are not good enough to enter Heaven and so following rules and making sure others do the same becomes the focus of their lives.

If we truly believed we belonged to an eternal spiritual kingdom that cannot be shaken, the foundation of our lives would be built on grace, on gratitude and all our actions both great and small would be offered in the same.

If we truly believed our God to be merciful, gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness what reasons would we have to fear entrance into God’s kingdom?

Yet we demand that rules be followed, we argue over the rightness of every form of worship, we worry and stress – we live in fear of God.  

Thus we live our lives not in a state of grace and gratitude we live  constantly vigilant for the rightness and wrongness of our faith, our service to the world often demands the recipients of our service follow the rules and be grateful for it.

We are quick to judge, we are aloof in our rightness, quick to anger, and very short on unconditional love.  We are the opposite of how God is described in Psalm 103:8.

Our God is a loving God, the creator and redeemer of all, and our eternal spiritual kingdom is unshakable for this I am are grateful. 

There is nothing that I can do on my own to compel God to let me into heaven!

I will enter through God's grace and for this I am grateful.

Live your life in the surety of God’s unconditional love for you.  

Live all your moments in faithful reflection of God’s loving kindness, so that in all you do you are gracious, constantly living in a state of gratitude.
   
Grandma Snyder
©2013-2016 twosnydergirls


Lectionary readings: Isaiah 58: 9b-14, Psalm 103: 1-8, Hebrews 12: 18-29, Luke 13: 10-17

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