From
everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who
has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. Luke 12:48
We
have so many blessings it is difficult to talk about being thankful without
being trite. In fact, it is a huge
understatement to say we are blessed. We
talk about it, we see it, we live in it, we mean it, we have a four day weekend off work to celebrate it. Bottom
line, we are totally, completely and inextricably blessed and therefore must
be thankful.
Gratitude
should be our response to a multitude of blessing. Our attitude of gratitude
should lead us to helping each other; not just an emotional though or pause or
prayer of placation we annually offer. We
need to share our blessings with others.
It is easy to share with friends, but there are others who need blessing
as well. Often it is tempting to
concentrate on what we don’t have instead of what we do have, but in Christ, we
have everything we need even though we may not have everything we want. Generosity is easier when we remember the
source of our blessing…Christ.
For
this reason, we need to respond from our abundance with generosity toward
others. We are blessed to be a
blessing. Since this is true, we need to
see every blessing we receive as not only something to be thankful for but as
an opportunity to bless someone else. God
blesses us so we may pass that blessing along.
We need to be a river of blessing that flows in and out, and not a dam that
blocks it up.
There
are many opportunities for is to reach out with our thankful generosity and
help others. We often look to programs
or other people to take the lead in responding but there are lots of additional
and probably little known opportunity for rogue responses of thanksgiving. You
can do something now, today. Why wait?
Its
time to give! Look around and count 10 things you are thankful for today and
how you can use simply one of them as an opportunity to bless one person within
two hours of reading this. I bet you
can. I bet a message to a friend or a
random act of kindness to a stranger or a gift of generosity can be easier than
you think. Remember, it all begins
with thanksgiving.
If you would rather drink your feast this year, here is an idea (no, its not an alcoholic beverage add) -----> Jones Soda
