Terri's Wellspring

Christian brothers, I ask you from my heart to give your bodies to God because of His loving-kindness to us. Let your bodies be a living and holy gift given to God. He is pleased with this kind of gift. This is the true worship that you should give Him. Romans 12:1 NLV

I am so thankful that I know Jesus Christ. He has provided so much joy, peace and tangible love for my life. Before accepting Him as my personal Savior, my life was incomplete. My walk with the Lord has created so much fulfillment in my life and I am thankful. This passage in Romans encourages us to present our lives as a living sacrifice for the Lord. We can truly worship God by living a life that follows His word, His Holy Spirit and His leading for us. We can bless Him with our lives and our living.

The Message Bible offers another translation of this scripture that encourages us to take our “everyday, ordinary” life and present it to God. Sometimes we resist presenting our whole lives and close the door on the compartments of our lives that may need work. But our God can take our ordinary lives and transform it into full beauty, once we put our trust in Him.

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life-your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life-and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.  Romans 12:1-2 Message

The Lord has made the heavens his throne;

from there he rules over everything.

Praise the Lord, you angels,

you mighty ones who carry out his plans,

listening for each of his commands.

Yes, praise the Lord, you armies of angels

who serve him and do his will!

Praise the Lord, everything he has created,

everything in all his kingdom.

Let all that I am praise the Lord.

Psalm 103:19-22

Our creator is worthy of our praise. Some places in the world give me a vivid picture of God, His power and His faithfulness by witnessing His creations. It is hard to sit by any ocean and not think about the magnitude of the waves, its constant motion and its age and not think about the creator. Exploring the Grand Canyon makes it easy to wonder, what happened here to cause these great walls of seemingly timeless rock. And there are more common place wonders, like blooming flowers, rabbits in my backyard and the beautiful feathers of birds. All of these things when we consider their creation causes me to think about how Great is the Creator. We can be thankful to God for these blessings. And bless His Holy name with all of our Praise.

I will praise the Lord at all times. I will constantly speak his praises. Psalms 34:1

The “I will” portion of this scripture reflects a personal decision and acknowledgment to give praise to the One who is so worthy of all the praise. We can approach each day and each situation with praises to the Lord on our lips and in our heart. We serve a Heavenly Father whose love for us is beyond our understanding. He loves us and has given us both grace and mercy, as we welcome another day. I am thankful this day for God’s goodness and faithfulness to me and to all of His children. We are praying for His continued leading and that every aspect of me, my thoughts, my words and the fruit of my hands will be used for His glory. We will have His praises on our lips and His songs in our hearts throughout this day and the days to come.

He redeems me from death and crowns me with love and tender mercies. Psalm 103:4

I think about how we are kept safe from death and destruction as we live according to His word.  My life without Him was dark with destructive decisions and living. We are so thankful for His provision of love, mercy and redemption that allows us to live in His light.

Our life with the Lord is full of blessings.  He provides protection and gives us love and tender mercies that can’t be earned but are available to us freely.   As His child, we receive daily doses of both love and mercy that is renewed daily from an everlasting reservoir.  I am thankful for this marvelous blessing in our lives.

Dear Father –

We are so thankful for the blessing of today.  We thank you for the gifts of redemption, love and mercy that are available to each of us.  We pray for those who are in need of these gifts in their lives.  We pray for that grace and mercy will allow them to see you clearly as the Father and the free gift of salvation through your son, Jesus Christ.  We ask for faithful servants to cross their paths who will be effective witnesses for them to experience a life with you. We are thankful for the blessing of added souls to your Kingdom.  These things we ask, in Jesus name.   Amen.

Let all that I am praise the Lord; with my whole heart, I will praise his holy name. Psalm 103:1

My desire is to live a life that honors the Lord. I have heard this verse many times “Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.” This translation blessed me this morning. I began to think about “all that I am”:

my heart,

my mind,

my soul,

my love,

my thoughts,

my intellect,

my gifts,

my talents,

my relationships,

my words,

my integrity,

my deeds,

my promises,

my time,

my heart desires,

my compassion

my life.

Let all that I am praise the Lord. Our God is certainly worthy.

I will praise the Lord at all times.

I will constantly speak his praises.

I will boast only in the Lord; let all who are helpless take heart.

Come, let us tell of the Lord’s greatness; let us exalt his name together.

Psalm 34:1-3

Our God is Great and well-deserving of our continuous praise. I find my best days are when I start and finish the day with the Lord’s goodness on my heart and mind. With a song in my heart about His faithfulness, His greatness and His love for me, it is difficult to let discouragement in my day. Some days may be more difficult than others but when we surround ourselves with His word, His praises on our lips, His songs of praise, He is faithful to encourage our hearts. This is true even in the middle of great challenges. He is faithful to deliver us of fear and to provide the peace we need for blessed living. Bless His Holy Name.

Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!

For His mercy endures forever.

Who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord?
Who can declare all His praise?
Blessed are those who keep justice,
And he who does righteousness at all times!

Remember me, O Lord, with the favor You have toward Your people.
Oh, visit me with Your salvation,
That I may see the benefit of Your chosen ones,
That I may rejoice in the gladness of Your nation,
That I may glory with Your inheritance.

Psalm 106:1-5

Our God is worthy of all of our praise. We can bless His Holy name with our words, with our deeds and our living. Our Father has blessed us with His grace, His mercy and has surrounded us with His love. I continue to be amazed at His blessings in my life. He is a wonderful Savior. Today, as we approach the day with everything that it will bring, we can offer our praise to God for who He is in our lives. We can praise Him for being our Heavenly Father.   We can bless Him for His Greatness. We can praise Him for another opportunity to serve Him for another day. God is worthy of our praise.

In everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.  1 Thessalonians 5:18

We have so much to thank God for. Walking with a thankful heart often can transform our approach to life and the situations that we face. Even during our greatest challenges it is important to realize that things could be worse but for God’s mercy and concern for us. Spending time thinking about where the Lord has brought us and His faithfulness to meet our needs is a powerful reminder of God’s goodness to us.

As a young person in college, I used to write down the bills that I owed and keep them in my Bible. The amounts at the time looked so insurmountable but as a tither I believed that the Lord would help me to meet every need. I was able to look at these slips of paper some years later each of them represented a testimony of God’s ability to provide for our needs. I realize now that those experiences helped me to build my faith for what I would need later in my journey. We are so thankful for a Faithful Father for who He is in our lives.

O LORD, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth, Who have set Your glory above the heavens! Psalm 8:1

Our God is Great!

When we think about our Father who is the creator of the earth, the oceans and the stars above, we know He is truly a great God! He created all of these things and still listens to our daily prayers. What a great God that He is able to sit High and look low to meet us in our circumstances. God is worthy of our honor and our praise! His name is excellent!

All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’) Isaiah 7:14

One of my favorite Christmas songs is “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”. The words reflect the great anticipation of Jesus’ birth. It expresses a great desire for God’s Son to come and to dwell among His people. I am so thankful that each day we have the opportunity for God to live with us and in us through a relationship with His Son Jesus Christ. We know that the promise in Isaiah was fulfilled and Jesus was born and He died and rose again for our sins. What an awesome gift that God is with Us!