A Prayer for Overflowing with Thankfulness

--Scotty Smith

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. 

Col. 2:6-7

 Dear Lord Jesus, I want to be a man who gives you the quality and quantity of thanks of which you are so absolutely worthy. Not like a slow drip, a babbling brook, or a meandering stream, but like a geyser—a gospel geyser—spontaneously erupting with gratitude any and every moment. I want to overflow with thankfulness, to the praise of your glory and grace!

I have every reason to be like the healed Samaritan leper, who with a stunned heart and irrepressible gratitude returned to give you heartfelt thanks (Luke 17:11-17). I return today, and I want to return every day, to express my profound thankfulness.

From the first nanosecond I was given faith to receive you as Savior and Lord, I was fully and firmly rooted in your righteousness and love. Now, completely forgiven, I have no other righteousness than yours. Just as I cannot add one iota to your righteousness, I can never, ever be separated from your love, and your love, alone, is better than life. You have already set me free from the penalty of sin, you are continually setting me free from the power of sin, and one day you will set me free from the very presence of sin.
Jesus, I want to live in you—reflecting upon your glory with an unveiled face and marinating in the riches of your unfailing grace. I want to be built up in you, maturing by the same grace that saved me, being liberated for the race that you’ve set before me. I want to be strengthened in you, forgiving others as you have forgiven me; forbearing with others as you forbear with me; accepting others as you accept me—loving as your beloved.

Lord Jesus, how I would love to be already done with all of my carping and droning, all whining and complaining, all boohoo-ing and Eeyore-ing, and with every other expression of ingratitude. But until that Day, rise up in me this day, and set my heart, voice, hands and feet free to love you and serve those around me. Oh, Fountain of Grace, Oh, Artesian Spring of Life, set me free. So very Amen I pray, in your glorious and grace-filled name.

Go Vote!

As much as I dislike to see posts about politics. I feel this election is pretty important. Please, everyone who has the power too, go let your voice be heard, whether through casting your vote, or not casting your vote.

But remember, Jesus has the power to change the heart of any leader. (Ezra 1:1, 6:22, 7:27) and He can change the heart of whoever our President whoever may be.

No matter what "party" wins tomorrow, it's about much more then that. The office of President is one to be respected and honored, and reflects in many ways the deeper heart of the people, just as much the view of the candidate.


So, go vote tomorrow. Find your nearest voting place HERE.

"Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin condemns any people." ~Proverbs 14:34

Why Are You Afraid of Humility?

He erased the curse, he triumphed over death, he opened paradise.

He struck down sin, he opened wide the vaults of the sky, he lifted our first fruits to heaven, he filled the whole world with godliness.

He drove out error, he led back the truth, he made our firstfruits mount to the royal throne.

He accomplished so many good deeds that neither I nor all humanity together could set them before your minds in words.

Before he humbled himself, only the angels knew him. After he humbled himself, all human nature knew him.

You see how his humbling of himself did not make him have less but produced countless benefits, countless deeds of virtue, and made his glory shine forth with greater brightness. God wants for nothing and has need of nothing. Yet, when he humbled himself, he produced such great good, increased his household, and extended his kingdom.

Why, then, are you afraid that you will become less if you humble yourself?

- Trevin Wax from "Kingdom People"

C.S. Lewis on Reasoning

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. ~Romans 1:18-32

Charles Spurgeon Quote

"Give away a tract whenever you can; better still, give a little book that will not be torn up, one that has a cover on it, for you will probably see it upon the table when you call again. Speak a word for the Master whenever it is possible; and offer a short prayer at every convenient opportunity. I think we should make it a rule, whenever we hear a foul or blasphemous word in the street - (and, alas! we constantly do so) - always to pray for the person who utters it. Perhaps then the devil might find it expedient not to stir up people to swear, if he knew that it excited Christians to pray. Try it, at all events, and see whether it may not have a subtle power to stop the profanity which is so terribly on the increase."

D.L. Moody Quote, "Wake Up Church!"

“People talk about our being earnest and fanatical—about our being on fire. Would to God the church were on fire! This world would soon shake to its foundation. May God wake up a slumbering church! What we want you to do is not to shout ‘amen’ and clap your hands. The deepest and quietest waters very often run swiftest. We want you to go right to work; there will be a chance for you to shout by and by. Go and speak to your neighbor and tell him of Christ and heaven. You need not go far before you will find someone passing down to the darkness of eternal death. Haste to his rescue!”

“If you have thought of this dying thief only as one who put off repentance, I want you now to believe of him as one that did greatly and grandly believe in Christ. And oh, that you would do the same! Oh that you would put a great confidence in my great Lord! Never did a poor sinner trust Christ too much. There was never a case of a guilty one who believed that Jesus could forgive him and afterward found that He could not–who believed that Jesus could save him on the spot and then woke up to find that it was a delusion. No; plunge into this river of confidence in Christ. The waters are waters to swim in, not to drown in. Never did a soul perish that glorified Christ by a living, loving faith in Him. Come, then, with all your sin, whatever it may be, with all your deep depression of spirits, all your agony of conscience. Come and grasp my Lord and Master with both the hands of your faith, and He shall be yours, and you shall be His.”

-C.H. Spurgeon, The Power of the Cross of Christ, 80