Thankful for His Inheritance

Have you ever dreamed of receiving a surprise large inheritance?  One you didn’t expect that changed your life forever?  At www.oddee.com there are some stories about just such a thing happening.  Here are two of them:

“Luis Carlos de Noronha Cabral da Camara made an unusual distribution of his money after his death: 70 people listed in a Lisbon phone directory were contacted out of the blue after his death to be told he had made them his beneficiaries. They had been chosen at random from the directory, in front of two witnesses at a registry office 13 years before. It certainly came as a shock to them. In the first place, people do not, as a rule, make wills in Portugal. In the second, Portuguese aristocrats are getting thin on the ground, let alone eccentric ones. In the third – to be chosen by phone directory? No wonder that some feared they were being scammed.”

“A pair of penniless down and outs inherited a share of a 4 billion GBP fortune after a bizarre twist in family fortunes. Brothers Zsolt and Geza Peladi were so poor they lived in a cave outside Budapest, Hungary, and sold scrap they found on the street for pennies. Now both of them and a sister who lives in America inherited their grandmother’s massive fortune after a life of poverty. “We knew our mother came from a wealthy family but she was a difficult person and had severed ties with them, then later abandoned us and we lost touch with her and our father until she eventually died,” said Geza, 43. They learned of their good fortune after homelessness charity workers in Hungary were contacted by lawyers handling the estate of the brothers’ maternal grandmother who died recently in Baden-Wurttenberg, Germany. Under German law direct descendants are automatically entitled to a share of any estate – that would pass from their dead mother to them.”

What amazing stories.  That just seems like it would be a dream come true.  So many of us suffer from financial problems or would just like to get some of those extras we have always wanted.  However, most of us are not going to be this fortunate.  We have to keep working hard and earning our money the old fashioned way.  The truth is many times sudden money just leads to a whole other set of problems. Thankfully, if we have the Lord in our hearts, He will provide for us exactly what we need when we need it. Colossians 1: 11 – 14 give us even more to be thankful for:

¹¹ May you be strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience, with joy ¹² giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light. ¹³ He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, ¹⁴ in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

God loves us so much that He has enabled each of us to share in the inheritance.  We are now heirs with Jesus, His Son.  That sounds too good to be true.  Almost like those people who received an inheritance because they were listed in the telephone directory.  There is no way we deserve it.  It is all due to Jesus dying on the cross for us and wiping away our sin.  What good brother on earth would die just so his bad siblings could share in the inheritance after their Father had passed away.  I don’t think anyone would.  Here on earth we all fight over inheritance and we are usually glad when someone is knocked out of the will because of their bad behavior.  God always is the opposite of what most humans would do or be like.  What an encouragement to know that God loves us this much and to know that He has even given us an inheritance. 

I am thankful for an eternal inheritance that will out do and out-live any earthly inheritance we could ever receive.

Thankful for His Power and Might

Have you ever watched any of the “World’s Strongest Man” competitions?  They have quite a wide variety of competitive elimination rounds (Loading Race, McGlashen Stones / Atlas Stones, Truck / Airplane Pull, Overhead Press, Fingal Fingers, Power Stairs, Squat, Dead Lift, Keg Toss, Car Carry, Hercules Hold, Carry and Drag, Farmer’s Walk, Yoke Walk / Fridge Carry,  Husafell Stone, Duck Walk, Log Throw / Caber Toss, Tug of War, Pole Pushing, and Crucifix (To read how intense these really are and how much weight is involved click here).  Wouldn’t it be cool to be even able to lift half of what these guys lift?  To just not strain your back mowing the lawn or lifting a heavy laundry basket would be an answered prayer.

Spiritually it would be great to be that strong too.  We strain our spiritual muscles just trying to walk up to someone to invite them to church.  Yet in Colossians 1 we learn that we can be strengthened with God’s power and might.

⁹ For this reason also, since the day we heard this, we haven’t stopped praying for you. We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, ¹⁰ so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing [to Him], bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God. ¹¹ May you be strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience, with joy.

All we need to do is ask Him for knowledge of His will, wisdom and understanding, then walk worthy of Lord.  He will strengthen us as result with all power according to His might.  Then we will have the strength, endurance, patience and joy we need as we serve Him.  We won’t be burning both ends of the candle.  We won’t be stressed or worried.  We won’t be afraid to witness to others about Jesus.  We won’t give out when it gets tough.  God’s power and might will supply us.  Common sense tells us that this is what we should want.  That this is what we must do and that we will be blessed.

I am thankful that God’s power and might can sustain me to do His work and that I will glorify Him by displaying His power and might, not my own.

Thankful For These Instructions

I will say it again…God is so good to us!  As we saw yesterday, not only has He given us eternal life, but He gives us complete knowledge of His Will, wisdom and spiritual understanding to live that life.  Just when you would think that was enough, our loving Father goes even further in blessing us.  He wisely gives us instructions to help us in our walk on this Earth.  He even makes the instructions clear and easy to understand.  God is so merciful.  He doesn’t just hand us a difficult and incomplete road map to follow.  He spells it all out to us and gives us what we need.

⁹ For this reason also, since the day we heard this, we haven’t stopped praying for you. We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, ¹⁰ so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing [to Him], bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God. ¹¹ May you be strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience, with joy.

He instructs us to use His gifts to walk worthy of Him.  The purpose in everything God does is to glorify Him.  Therefore, if He gives us knowledge of His Will, wisdom and spiritual understanding, then He expects us to glorify Him when we use them, which means we are called to walk worthy.  We are expected to bear fruit in every good work and to continue our growth in Him.  When we follow these instructions we not only glorify Him, we are blessed as a result.

I am so thankful that God takes the time to give us these instructions, so that I have the opportunity to glorify Him for His mercy, grace, and love towards me.

Presidential Instructions

With the Presidential Election occurring yesterday, we started taking a look at some of our past Presidents.  Yesterday we looked at George Washington’s godly wisdom, and today we are going to look at Abraham Lincoln’s godly instructions.  Being it is near Thanksgiving, let’s read an excerpt from his Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1863.

No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people; I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer to our beneficent Father, who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to him that, for such singular deliverances and blessings; they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

Like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln understood the power behind what happened in the United States of America.  In this government proclamation he gives us some very powerful instructions.  He didn’t lay out to them how to cook the turkey or which football team to cheer for.  He instructed them to take a particular day of the year and spend time in prayer and thanksgiving to God for the benefits He gives them.  He also asked that they say prayers for all those who had served in war and their families.  He reminded the people that there had been national sin.  He wanted them to implore (entreat, beg, beseech) God to heal the country and restore it.  These were not casual prayers he was instructing the citizens of the United States to make.  He wanted fervent prayers made for the country and words of thanksgiving to be given to God for his mercy and grace.

As Christians we are called upon to be devoted to prayer and to give thanksgiving to God.  Read what Paul told the Colossians in 4:2.

² Devote yourselves to prayer; stay alert in it with thanksgiving.

We should take Lincoln’s and Paul’s instructions seriously.  We would not be where we are without God protecting and guiding our country from its start.  We should be able to recognize like President Lincoln that as a country and its citizens we have sinned.  Our country needs to be healed.  Just like the people of Lincoln’s time we need to implore God to forgive us and heal us.  We need to beg Him for mercy and grace.  We need to be thankful for what He has done for us.

(To read more about our Forefathers visit:  http://www.wallbuilders.com)

 

 

 

 

Presidential Instructions

During the month of February we remember two of our past Presidents, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, on their birthdays.  A few years back we created for convenience sake a single Holiday in honor of all our Presidents.  Yesterday we looked at George Washington’s godly wisdom, and today we are going to look at Abraham Lincoln’s godly instructions.  Read an excerpt from his Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1863.

No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people; I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer to our beneficent Father, who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to him that, for such singular deliverances and blessings; they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

Like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln understood the power behind what happened in the United States of America.  In this government proclamation he gives us some very powerful instructions.  He didn’t lay out to them how to cook the turkey or which football team to cheer for.  He instructed them to take a particular day of the year and spend time in prayer and thanksgiving to God for the benefits He gives them.  He also asked that they say prayers for all those who had served in war and their families.  He reminded the people that there had been national sin.  He wanted them to implore (entreat, beg, beseech) God to heal the country and restore it.  These were not casual prayers he was instructing the citizens of the United States to make.  He wanted fervent prayers made for the country and words of thanksgiving to be given to God for his mercy and grace.

As Christians we are called upon to be devoted to prayer and to give thanksgiving to God.  Read what Paul told the Colossians in 4:2.

² Devote yourselves to prayer; stay alert in it with thanksgiving.

We should take Lincoln’s and Paul’s instructions seriously.  We would not be where we are without God protecting and guiding our country from its start.  We should be able to recognize like President Lincoln that as a country and its citizens we have sinned.  Our country needs to be healed.  Just like the people of Lincoln’s time we need to implore God to forgive us and heal us.  We need to beg Him for mercy and grace.  We need to be thankful for what He has done for us.

(To read more about our Forefathers visit:  http://www.wallbuilders.com)

 

 

 

 

Presidential Instructions

During the month of February we remember two of our past Presidents, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, on their birthdays.  A few years back we created for convenience sake a single Holiday in honor of all our Presidents.  Yesterday we looked at George Washington’s godly wisdom, and today we are going to look at Abraham Lincoln’s godly instructions.  Read an excerpt from his Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1863.

No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people; I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer to our beneficent Father, who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to him that, for such singular deliverances and blessings; they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

Like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln understood the power behind what happened in the United States of America.  In this government proclamation he gives us some very powerful instructions.  He didn’t lay out to them how to cook the turkey or which football team to cheer for.  He instructed them to take a particular day of the year and spend time in prayer and thanksgiving to God for the benefits He gives them.  He also asked that they say prayers for all those who had served in war and their families.  He reminded the people that there had been national sin.  He wanted them to implore (entreat, beg, beseech) God to heal the country and restore it.  These were not casual prayers he was instructing the citizens of the United States to make.  He wanted fervent prayers made for the country and words of thanksgiving to be given to God for his mercy and grace.

As Christians we are called upon to be devoted to prayer and to give thanksgiving to God.  Read what Paul told the Colossians in 4:2.

² Devote yourselves to prayer; stay alert in it with thanksgiving.

We should take Lincoln’s and Paul’s instructions seriously.  We would not be where we are without God protecting and guiding our country from its start.  We should be able to recognize like President Lincoln that as a country and its citizens we have sinned.  Our country needs to be healed.  Just like the people of Lincoln’s time we need to implore God to forgive us and heal us.  We need to beg Him for mercy and grace.  We need to be thankful for what He has done for us.

(To read more about our Forefathers visit:  http://www.wallbuilders.com)

 

 

 

 

 

Thankful for His Inheritance

Have you ever dreamed of receiving a surprise large inheritance?  One you didn’t expect that changed your life forever?  At www.oddee.com there are some stories about just such a thing happening.  Here are two of them:

“Luis Carlos de Noronha Cabral da Camara made an unusual distribution of his money after his death: 70 people listed in a Lisbon phone directory were contacted out of the blue after his death to be told he had made them his beneficiaries. They had been chosen at random from the directory, in front of two witnesses at a registry office 13 years before. It certainly came as a shock to them. In the first place, people do not, as a rule, make wills in Portugal. In the second, Portuguese aristocrats are getting thin on the ground, let alone eccentric ones. In the third – to be chosen by phone directory? No wonder that some feared they were being scammed.”

“A pair of penniless down and outs inherited a share of a 4 billion GBP fortune after a bizarre twist in family fortunes. Brothers Zsolt and Geza Peladi were so poor they lived in a cave outside Budapest, Hungary, and sold scrap they found on the street for pennies. Now both of them and a sister who lives in America inherited their grandmother’s massive fortune after a life of poverty. “We knew our mother came from a wealthy family but she was a difficult person and had severed ties with them, then later abandoned us and we lost touch with her and our father until she eventually died,” said Geza, 43. They learned of their good fortune after homelessness charity workers in Hungary were contacted by lawyers handling the estate of the brothers’ maternal grandmother who died recently in Baden-Wurttenberg, Germany. Under German law direct descendants are automatically entitled to a share of any estate – that would pass from their dead mother to them.”

What amazing stories.  That just seems like it would be a dream come true.  So many of us suffer from financial problems or would just like to get some of those extras we have always wanted.  However, most of us are not going to be this fortunate.  We have to keep working hard and earning our money the old fashioned way.  The truth is many times sudden money just leads to a whole other set of problems. Thankfully, if we have the Lord in our hearts, He will provide for us exactly what we need when we need it. Colossians 1: 11 – 14 give us even more to be thankful for:

¹¹ May you be strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience, with joy ¹² giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light. ¹³ He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, ¹⁴ in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

God loves us so much that He has enabled each of us to share in the inheritance.  We are now heirs with Jesus, His Son.  That sounds too good to be true.  Almost like those people who received an inheritance because they were listed in the telephone directory.  There is no way we deserve it.  It is all due to Jesus dying on the cross for us and wiping away our sin.  What good brother on earth would die just so his bad siblings could share in the inheritance after their Father had passed away.  I don’t think anyone would.  Here on earth we all fight over inheritance and we are usually glad when someone is knocked out of the will because of their bad behavior.  God always is the opposite of what most humans would do or be like.  What an encouragement to know that God loves us this much and to know that He has even given us an inheritance. 

I am thankful for an eternal inheritance that will out do and out-live any earthly inheritance we could ever receive.

Thankful for His Power and Might

Have you ever watched any of the “World’s Strongest Man” competitions?  They have quite a wide variety of competitive elimination rounds (Loading Race, McGlashen Stones / Atlas Stones, Truck / Airplane Pull, Overhead Press, Fingal Fingers, Power Stairs, Squat, Dead Lift, Keg Toss, Car Carry, Hercules Hold, Carry and Drag, Farmer’s Walk, Yoke Walk / Fridge Carry,  Husafell Stone, Duck Walk, Log Throw / Caber Toss, Tug of War, Pole Pushing, and Crucifix (To read how intense these really are and how much weight is involved click here).  Wouldn’t it be cool to be even able to lift half of what these guys lift?  To just not strain your back mowing the lawn or lifting a heavy laundry basket would be an answered prayer.

Spiritually it would be great to be that strong too.  We strain our spiritual muscles just trying to walk up to someone to invite them to church.  Yet in Colossians 1 we learn that we can be strengthened with God’s power and might.

⁹ For this reason also, since the day we heard this, we haven’t stopped praying for you. We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, ¹⁰ so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing [to Him], bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God. ¹¹ May you be strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience, with joy.

All we need to do is ask Him for knowledge of His will, wisdom and understanding, then walk worthy of Lord.  He will strengthen us as result with all power according to His might.  Then we will have the strength, endurance, patience and joy we need as we serve Him.  We won’t be burning both ends of the candle.  We won’t be stressed or worried.  We won’t be afraid to witness to others about Jesus.  We won’t give out when it gets tough.  God’s power and might will supply us.  Common sense tells us that this is what we should want.  That this is what we must do and that we will be blessed.

I am thankful that God’s power and might can sustain me to do His work and that I will glorify Him by displaying His power and might, not my own.

Thankful For These Instructions

I will say it again…God is so good to us!  As we saw yesterday, not only has He given us eternal life, but He gives us complete knowledge of His Will, wisdom and spiritual understanding to live that life.  Just when you would think that was enough, our loving Father goes even further in blessing us.  He wisely gives us instructions to help us in our walk on this Earth.  He even makes the instructions clear and easy to understand.  God is so merciful.  He doesn’t just hand us a difficult and incomplete road map to follow.  He spells it all out to us and gives us what we need.

⁹ For this reason also, since the day we heard this, we haven’t stopped praying for you. We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, ¹⁰ so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing [to Him], bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God. ¹¹ May you be strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience, with joy.

He instructs us to use His gifts to walk worthy of Him.  The purpose in everything God does is to glorify Him.  Therefore, if He gives us knowledge of His Will, wisdom and spiritual understanding, then He expects us to glorify Him when we use them, which means we are called to walk worthy.  We are expected to bear fruit in every good work and to continue our growth in Him.  When we follow these instructions we not only glorify Him, we are blessed as a result.

I am so thankful that God takes the time to give us these instructions, so that I have the opportunity to glorify Him for His mercy, grace, and love towards me.