Jan 14, 2013

One Thousand Gifts

Chapter 2

...Is that the message of nightmares and dreams?  To live either fully alive...or in empty nothingness?  It's the in between that drives us mad.
          It's the life in between,...this is the life in between that makes us the wild walking dead.
          Will I have lived fully--or just empty?

How do we live so fully so we are fully ready to die?

Deep chara joy is found only at the table of the eucharisteo- the table of thanksgiving...is it that simple?

The greatest thing is to give thanks for everything.  He who has learned this knows what it means to live...He has penetrated the whole mystery of life-giving thanks for everything.

The only real fall of man is his noneucharistic life...ingratitude, was the fall- humanity's discontent with all that God freely gives.

I'd need to forsake my noneucharisteo...and grab hold to euchristeo, a lifestyle of thanksgiving.

Jesus offers thanksgiving for even that which will break Him and crush Him and wound Him and yield a bounty of joy (chara).  the mystery always contains more mysteries.

If I am truly in Christ, mustn't my initial act, too, always be an act of thanksgiving, returning to Jesus with thanks on the lips?

Thanksgiving-giving thanks in everything- prepares the way that God might show us His fullest salvation in Christ.

The act of sacrificing thank offerings to God- even for the bread and cup of cost, for cancer and crucifixion= this prepares the way for God to show us His fullest salvation from bitter, angry, resentful lives and from all sin that estranges us from Him.

I know in my life it truly is a sacrifice to be thankful for the things I view as "bad".  I remember several years ago when I was waiting on the results of a breast biopsy.  I knew the doctor was pretty sure that it wasn't cancer, but having to wait over the weekend for the results gave me plenty of time to worry and fret.  BUT, when I turned my focus from me to HIM, I was truly able to begin giving thanks.  PTL I did not have cancer, but the trial had been real.  The action of making a choice to give thanks, even in my fear, allowed me to see Him through the holes in my life.

Our salvation in Christ is real, yet the completeness of that salvation is not fully realized in a life until the life realizes the need to give thanks.  In everything...
                       I would never experience the fullness of my salvation until I expressed the fullness of my thanks everyday, and eucharisteo is elemental to living the saved life.

Eucharisteo, the Greek word with the hard meaning and the harder meaning to live- this is the only way from empty to full.

Luke 17, the story of the 10 lepers.  ONE, (a foreigner) returned to thank Jesus.  Jesus said to him, "...thy faith has saved thee..."
         saved=sozo, (Greek)= salvation
And when did the leper receive sozo-the saving to the full, whole life?  When he returned and gave thanks.
              Our very saving is associated with our gratitude.
        Jesus counts thanksgiving as integral in a faith that saves.

This is very convicting.  How can I claim to be a Christ-follower if I am ungrateful?  It' easy to give thanks when things are going my way.  But the real test comes when things go wrong.  Will I choose to be thankful or will I complain?  I pray I will choose the first.

 


                         One Thousand Gifts

         



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