I Love It! – GAMES On - Practicing Appreciation - Purity 878

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning! Today's photo of the sparkling sunshine pathway to the hump of Magdalene Island on the Hudson River beneath a blue sky decorated with a collection of wispy cirrus clouds comes to us from my brother-in-law who shared this scene on social media 2 days ago, commenting, When this view is down the road from your home, how can you not take advantage of a day like today? How indeed. While my brother's wife's brother didn't share the location of this site, as the former mayor of Tivoli, New York, he tipped his hand by including the hashtag #ilovet, which is Tivoli backwards, and a Google Maps search later led me to conclude clue that this view was from— if this view was from Tivoli, it had to be in the southerly direction of the Hudson River because there are no islands to the north. When we share our views of life— on life, while we may not know all that is happening in someone's circumstances, we can get a pretty good idea where they are coming from. And when someone is pointing others to the beauty that surrounds them, I believe I I believe it can be a reflection of the state of their lives. If someone is taking time to appreciate the good things around them and share them with others, I believe that they are, are not far from God because they are not only finding moments of peace and beauty for themselves, but they are trying to share the moment with us and perhaps unwittingly assuring themselves In sharing a photo, we are telling people, "Here I am. At this day and time, I was here, and I was well." And whether we have a deep personal connection with a person or not, we can share in their joy. Well, it's Wednesday, and that hump of Magdalen Island sitting in the Hudson has been shared to reflect my brother-in-law's appreciation for his place in life, and as a visual reminder that we have reached the midpoint of another work week. While Wednesdays can be pretty blah and matter-of-fact because we find ourselves in between the joy of the weekend past and the weekend yet to come, I hope to remind all of us connected to God through faith in Jesus Christ that while we might only be able to find the happiness— find happiness in positive circumstances like a weekend's rest or enjoying a good view, The Christian disciple has no limits on the joy they can experience, as our relationship with God transcends our physical location and the circumstances of our current situation. The joy of the Lord is our strength. When we put our faith in Christ, we have peace with God. We are forgiven. We are secure in his love and assured of good outcomes. Ultimately, if not in the here and now. While I certainly encourage all my friends to seize the day and practice appreciation for the things we encounter and to give thanks to God for those things, I am also quick to point out that our relationship with God is enough to give us a continual sense of peace and subsequently fill us with joy. Marcus and Stephanie Hindman— Marcus Warner and Stephanie Hindman, in their book Building Bounce describes a way of practicing appreciation with the acronym G.A.M.E.S. So let's play ball and see how we can practice appreciation to help us, to help us to be emotionally resilient, to continually find our way back to joy. G is for gratitude. That's right, it's November, so let's give thanks. But in this instance, Warner and Hinman recognize that there is a lot to be grateful for. So in their acronym, their instruction is highly specific. G, let's see, highly specific. Warner and Hinman direct us to find something for the first step to play this game of, of appreciation. Warner and Hinman direct us to find something we can have gratitude for. For right now, in our present moment. This brings us into the moment of our lives, connecting us to our bodies and our present experience, a checkup of sorts, and directs us to seek a— see a positive light in our lives right now as we live and breathe. This can be the fact that I'm alive, I'm breathing, I'm relatively well and free of pain, I have warm clothes on, I am comfortable. I have electricity. I have a lot of things in my life right now that I can appreciate and be thankful for. That's the first step for G in gratitude. A is for anticipation, where we reflect on something in the future I can appreciate. For example, we can appreciate that this work day will come to a conclusion and we can enjoy our time at home later. We can appreciate that we will see our friends at work. We or that we will be able to have a nice dinner later. If there's, if there's much we can appreciate in the present, this just naturally carries into our futures. If now is good, so will our future be. The next letter is M, which is for Memories. When we can appreciate things, where we can appreciate things in our past. This can be memories of good things and times Or it even— it can even be a memory of not so good things and times that we no longer are experiencing. Our memories can be used to appreciate all that we have encountered that have made us grow and to bring us to where we are now. So memories. E is for experiences, where we can plan to do things that we can appreciate. And appreciate the fact that we can plan them. Making plans for or reflecting on something we can do that gives us circumstantial happiness can give us joy. Or we can just do them. If there is an experience that will give us happiness but will not have resultant guilt and shame, we should do it and appreciate the experience. And finally, S is for singing. Yup, There is some wisdom to the old adage, "To whistle while we work." The act of singing can lift our spirits and give us joy. I personally recommend getting into Christian worship music and singing songs of praise that simultaneously connect us to the Lord and encourage us about our relationship with him. And all he has done for us. So as we walk through another Wednesday, remember to get your games on and practice appreciation. When we do that, we discover that it really is a wonderful life. And when we know the author of life, the Lord, we can experience a relational joy to God from knowing that he personally directed our lives and provides us with all there is to appreciate. So appreciate all you have and all that God has done, is doing, and will do for you when you keep walking and talking with him. Today's Bible verses come to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verses are Psalm 112:5-9, and they say, good comes to those who lend money generously and conduct their business fairly. Such people will not be overcome by evil. Those who are righteous will be long remembered. They do not fear bad news. They confidently trust the Lord to care for them. They are confident and fearless and can face their foes triumphantly. They share freely and give generously to those in need. Their good deeds will be remembered forever. They will have influence and honor. Today's Bible verses encourage us to be generous and to live righteously as a result of our relationship with God, indicating that when we do this, we can rise above the challenges of this life and leave a legacy behind that will be worthy of honor and that could influence others. The New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men only shared verses 6 and 9 of these verses, with the emphasis, emphasis of being remembered for the good we do, I guess. But I decided to share the other verses to show that our lives are, are a little more than what we will be remembered for, that we are living this life now and not just looking forward to positive testimonies about us at the hour of our deaths. The emphasis from our resource was when you want to earn the respect of others, which quite frankly, as I, as I see, as a less than respectable motivation for living righteously. Without that, the surrounding context that tells us that these people are confidently trusting the Lord seems like a, like a do good to look good instruction. So as much as it is nice to be respected, to be honored, and influence others, our aim as disciples of Christ is to be pleasing to the Lord.. Those other benefits are bonuses. Christ basically teaches us this in Matthew 5 and 6, not to do things for the crowd, before men. So be generous, live righteously, because it is what the Lord would direct you to do, and if you gain the respect of others, try to influence them by directing them to Jesus. As always, I invite all to go to M.t. Clark.org where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers Brothers and sisters in Christ, with their walk. Today we continue sharing from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Discipleship, also known as The Cost of Discipleship. And today we share from Matthew, the beginning of his exposition of Matthew 6, on the hidden nature of the Christian life and hidden righteousness. So if you want to see how our righteousness should be hidden, not to get the respect of others Go to mtforchrist.org and you'll see the beginning where he begins the discussion of Matthew 6:1-4 on, on today's blog post, at the end of today's blog post. So check that out. Yeah, so it's Wednesday and we should appreciate our lives, but you know, the good things in life are great, but ultimately they will end. You know, most of us will die before Christ returns. Well, I don't know that. I guess we'll see. But the thing is, we shouldn't be so focused on the material things that give us pleasure without a relationship with the Lord. It's truly through our relationship with God that we can appreciate, you know, the source, you know, the one who made everything in our lives and the one who provided all of the things in this world world that we can appreciate. The very lives we have have come from the Lord. The fact that we're— we have an eternal destiny that's not going to end in destruction and death and, you know, judgment is something we can appreciate. And really, how can you have peace unless you have that? So as, as much as I like to point out all the things that can build joy and bring us back to joy by doing these practices, uh, you know, to give us good mental health and emotional resilience. Uh, the, the thing that gives us the peace is walking with the Lord. And, uh, but, but we might need some help. And so these practices drawn from Christian counselors is what I, what I share, because it's through the application of our faith in the way we live that we can, we can have the fruit of the Spirit grow in our lives. You know, these practices are merely, you know, instruction basically to guide you in walking in the Spirit. There's a lot of material things in these practices that we can focus on, but in the context of our faith, that the fact that they're all provided to us from God who loves us you know, raises our appreciation level, raises our joy to a level that's beyond just the material. Some atheists could be happy about the sunset, but, you know, to him it's a mystery of where it came from out of nothing. To us, we know who made it and why he made it— to give us life and to play out his drama, his, his story. Of what creation will be. And the big, you know, bookmark in creation is the advent of Jesus Christ and how he came to give us peace and give us life abundantly. So we encourage people to get on the path of Christian discipleship, start living out your faith and recognizing, you know, where all this came from— God. And to tell others of the good things that he's done, especially sending Christ to save us, and, you know, so we could have forgiveness and peace with the Lord. So if you don't know anything about that, um, we direct you to go to mtforchrist.org or M.T. for Christ 24/7 podcast to check out our discipleship teachings for victory over the darkness. The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ. All of those are based on the Word of God, and they teach us about our identity in Christ and how we can be set free from the things that, you know, so easily give us, you know, take away our peace and take away our joy. So we recommend you check those out, and we always point people to the Bible as well. So if you need, if you need a Bible study, we do one once a week with our good friends Arthur and Susan Zanna Sincotti, and we share that on the podcast and YouTube channel as well. So we encourage you to check those things out and to keep, you know, to keep walking and talking with God, to know the joy, that the joy of the Lord is our strength. Anyway, let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. We just thank you so much for the joy set before us that we get to experience when we appreciate what you've given us. And, you know, live our lives with the purpose of showing others the joy that you, you can bring into their lives. Lord, we pray for the people listening today or reading the blog, that they would be blessed, Lord, that you would come alongside them in their prayer request and in their walk of faith, Lord, for the Holy Spirit to anoint them and guide them in the way they should go. Um, Lord, we, um, we just pray for you to go before us today. Lord, we love the way you set things up in this world to guide us, and we just ask for you to, you know, show us the things we need to know and to help us do the things we need to do to best represent you on the earth. Lord, we just, we thank you so much for all that you've done in our lives and all that you're doing and the things that you've have yet to do that we will see in the future. Um, Lord, we thank you, we praise you, and we love you. And we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.