The Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 5:18 “give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
We, as Christians, have so much to be thankful for.. But why is it that we have negative attitudes? What do we look on the bad side of everything? We need to learn to give thanks in all things, no matter if it’s good or bad.. Don’t believe you have anything to be thankful for?? Let me make a list…
1. God sent His only Son(Jesus) to pay the price for our sins. Jesus died to set us free… He did this so we could have eternal life and be with him forever.. That alone is something to be thankful about..

2. Family.. I’m blessed to have a wonderful family.. I have a wonderful wife, parents, brother and sister in law, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.

3. We live in a free country.. There are a lot of people who would love to be able to worship freely and be able to make descisions about everything on their own.. Many people would love to live in America.. Even with all Her problems, we are blessed to be free!

4. Job – Yes, work is a dirty word to some people, but in this economy, if you have a job you are blessed…

5. Home – It is true.. There is no place like home.. A whole lot of people aren’t fortunate enough to have a home.. A lot of people sleep wherever they can find a place…. If you have a house of your own then you are blessed…

I could go on and on with blessings that God has given to me personally.. Everyone has reasons to be thankful..

Learn to have a thankful heart.. Remember, it could always be a lot worse!

-Josh

Have you ever stopped to think about what true love really is? The Bible says in 1 John 4:9-12 “God showed how much He loved us by sending his only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through Him. This is real love. It is not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and His love has been brought to full expression through us.”
Do you love with the love of God? He sacrificed His Son so that we could have eternal life. That is the ULTIMATE act of love. He did that for US and yet we have a hard time having true love.
1 Corinthians 13 gives us the charecteristics of love. Verse 4 starts off with love is patient.. Isn’t that something, the first characteristic and I already failed. I am the most unpatient person in the world. We live in a give it to me now society. We as Americans are the most spoiled people. We want what we want and we want it right then.
It also says love is kind, not jealous, boastful, proud, or rude. Love doesn’t demand its own way, it’s not irritable, and it keeps no record of wrong. It’s never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. It never gives up or loses faith. It’s always hopeful and endures through every circumstance.
I find myself failing in most all of those areas.. There are not enough hours in a day for me to list all the times I fail to show true love.. What about you? Are you showing the world true love? God gave us the best example and gave us the charecteristics.
I am a firm believer that Christians can’t even get along with fellow Christians most of the time. That’s not love at all.  The world doesn’t want what we have because we don’t act any different than they do. If we showed them true love, they would see Jesus in us, and then want what we have. God forgive us for falling short of showing Your love to others.

Love – it’s something I need to work on. What about you?

I would just like to say Happy Father’s Day to my dad, and all the other dads out there.. It’s been said many times that anyone can be a father, but it takes a real man to be a dad! I feel very fortunate to have the dad I have.. He has always loved us… and more so than that he loves God and serves Him faithfully.. We’ve never been rich, but with work and God, all of our needs have been provided.. Take advantage of the time that you have with your dad.. You never know how much time you have left with him!!
Other than my earthly father, I have a heavenly father.. He loved me so much that He sent his Son to die for my sins.. I am not worthy of anything.. I am a sinner… I deserve hell.. He paid a debt He did not owe… I owed a debt I could not pay.. I needed someone to wash my sins away!! Thank You Lord for saving me and promising me a home in Heaven…

I consider my self very fortunate.. I have 2 great dads!!!

Once again.. HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!!!

There is a song, that I hear on the radio a lot, that really touches me by Matthew West called The Motions. For to long we as Christians have been just going through the motions. We’ve been playing church instead of being the church. It’s time we give Jesus EVERYTHING! Instead of staying in the four walls of our church and talk about how we are going to heaven and the world is going to hell, it’s time to go out and give them Jesus so they don’t have to go to hell.

I’m TIRED of playing church as usual. It’s not about coming to church, singing 2 songs, having a welcome, 2 more songs, taking up the offering, another song, then a special, and a sermon, and thinking we did God a favor by showing up to His house for a couple of hours on a Sunday morning. It’s about taking what we learned on Sunday morning and applying it to our lives and going out and winning lost souls for Christ and being a light for HIM! If the church would stop playing church and start BEING the church we could accomplish a lot for Christ! It’s time to stop going through the motions and start truly being Christians, which means CHRIST like! 

This is the song that I referred to at the beginning of the blog!

The Motions

-Josh