A Thankful Heart Is A Happy Heart!

     I am so thankful for my salvation. I know I say that a lot, but each time I say it, I mean it. Without Jesus Christ, my life would absolutely be a mess.

     Even when I disobey Him, He is good to me. Though He still allows me to endure consequences for my sin(s), He does not give me what I deserve. He is a good Father to me!

     I thank Him when He finally gets me to yield to Him, because then I experience the fruit of peace. Oh, the sweet peace that comes from a simple, humble heart toward my God! Everything else is so much nicer when I am in that kind of spirit!
     Not only do I see things rightly, when in the proper spirit, but the blessings of God seem to flow all around me and through me. Again, I know I do not deserve these blessings on my own merit, but wholly through the merit of my Lord Jesus Christ. Yet, I cannot but help feel that God smiles upon his daughter and throughly lavishes me with His love.
     I truly feel blessed when He allows me to serve Him in capacities that stretch my spiritual muscles. When He puts me in places that allow me to utilize a gift or talent He has given me is even more of a blessing! I get so overwhelmed with excitement, when I have realized what He has done for me, that I cannot seem to see straight! When He calms me down, I get to work, singing along my way. :)
     I thank Him for His Holy Word. That is the place where I find His perfect will for me, my marriage, my duties in church, and so forth. It blesses my heart to know I am in His perfect will, and when I see Him conforming me to His desires. Oh, how sweet it is to walk closely with my Lord!
     I not only have a sweeter walk with Him because of my obedience, but the obedience of others to Him as well. When a brother or sister in Christ are doing what God has told them to do, and I am disobeying, how wonderful it is to be encouraged, exhorted, yea, even rebuked when they are right with God and I am not! Their faithfulness to Christ convicts me to get right with Him, (and if necessary, them), and again He gets the glory!
     I end with Scripture references for your encouragement and enjoyment:

Hebrews 10

¹For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.

²For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.

³But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year.

⁴For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.

⁵Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:

⁶In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.

⁷Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.

⁸Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law;

⁹Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.

¹⁰By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

¹¹And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins:

¹²But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;

¹³From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.

¹⁴For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.

¹⁵Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before,

¹⁶This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;

¹⁷And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.

¹⁸Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.

¹⁹Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,

²⁰By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;

²¹And having an high priest over the house of God;

²²Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.

²³Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)

²⁴And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:

²⁵Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.

²⁶For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,

²⁷But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.

²⁸He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses:

²⁹Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?

³⁰For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people.

³¹It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

³²But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions;

³³Partly, whilst ye were made a gazingstock both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, whilst ye became companions of them that were so used.

³⁴For ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.

³⁵Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward.

³⁶For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.

³⁷For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.

³⁸Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.

³⁹But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.

James 1

¹James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.

²My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

³Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.

⁴But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

⁵If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

⁶But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.

⁷For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.

⁸A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

⁹Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted:

¹⁰But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.

¹¹For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.

¹²Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.

¹³Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:

¹⁴But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.

¹⁵Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

¹⁶Do not err, my beloved brethren.

¹⁷Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

¹⁸Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

¹⁹Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:

²⁰For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.

²¹Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.

²²But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

²³For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:

²⁴For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.

²⁵But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.

²⁶If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.

²⁷Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.