Creating a Thankful Life

This is by far my favorite 2 months of the year. Fall, football, cold, snow, snowboarding, winter, Thanksgiving, spending time with family, celebrating the birth of our Lord and savior. I always look forward to this time. As we are getting into this season one of the first things we start getting ready for is Thanksgiving. This year I have a lot to be thankful for. Most of all (well second to the love of our Creator) is my wife and our new born daughter, Jayden. Thanksgiving is about taking time and reflecting on our life, seeing how we are blessed and being thankful for where we are blessed. But how do we do this best? How can we be most thankful for everything God has blessed us with? By living a life of prayer. If you truly want live a life of thankfulness, you need live a life of prayer. When Jesus taught his disciples to pray he told them to pray, "Give us each day our daily bread" (Luke 11:3). This verse gives us the idea of praying for our everyday needs on a daily bases. We are to be praying for things everyday that a lot of times we take for granted. Things like food in the frig, computers to work on, flat screen TV's, family (including mother-in-laws who come to help out with a new born, and make you breakfast and keep your house clean while your wife is recovering), being able to do things like play basketball, a pay check that we think we get because we earned it, cars, toilets, anything that we use and "need" on a daily bases. Jesus tells them to pray for these things for a reason. So often we think that we worked for these things or that they are owed to us, or we deserve them, and therefore are not thankful for them. In James it says every good blessing comes from God, even the things that we take for granted everyday. Jesus tells us to pray for these things so that we do not forget where they came from. If we are to live a thankful life we are to be thankful for everything that God gives/puts in our life, and the best way to do that is to be praying daily for or daily needs. Then when they come in we remember that they are a blessing from God and not something that is owed to us. As we are coming up on Thanksgiving make sure you are praying, daily, so then you can see God work even in the everyday, and be truly thankful for all your blessings.

My first blog

This whole blogging thing is new to me. But it is a great way to communicate, which is something that I live to do. The mane purpose of this blog is to communicate in another the way lessons I am going to be teaching at Thrive Sr. High Ministries. So lets jump right in.
We are currently doing a series based of the fact that we are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26-27). If you have ever wondered what you were created for, this is your answer. We are created to be image bearers of God. Most important people or other "gods" use things like pictures or statues (idols) to show their likeness, but God created a race to show his image. People who are living, breathing, can think, can love. This is our purpose is to bare the image of God. But because of sin that image has been distorted and we, on our own cannot know the image of God. So God has sent his son to fix our sin problem that keeps us from knowing God, Jesus, Gods son, gave up his life so we can get right with God and start learning who God  is so we can again live as image bearers of God (Col. 3:9-10).
Have you ever allowed Jesus Christ to fix your sin problem? If not I would give it a try. Are you a follower of Jesus Christ already? If so are you becoming more and more like are creator? Are you learning about God so you can bare his image? Are you reflecting God, like a mirror, onto this world? I pray that we do!