Family of God: Re: [FamilyofGod] Praise And Adore HIM! :-)

wow, this is beautiful!!!! we will have to email offlist and get to know one another better.

in all we do, we do for GOD!!!!

----- Original Message -----

From: Jolene Cardenas

To: Family Of God

Sent: Tuesday, October 20, 2009 10:13 PM

Subject: [FamilyofGod] Praise And Adore HIM! :-)

dear Family Of God brethren,

I have a praise report to share with you'all that's applicable for me not only today, meaning 10-20-2009, but for every day of my life to come. It may sound redundant at first, but I purposefully made it to sound this way in order to place all emphasis on and glory to Him instead of me. Please read on! :-)

I thank our Lord Jesus Christ for teaching me daily to praise and adore Him whenever I get physically ill, because through it He can show me that He is my Chief Physician.

I thank our Lord Jesus Christ for teaching me daily to praise and adore Him whenever I experience rejection, loneliness and despair or whenever my heart breaks during a tragedy, because through it He can show me that He is my Chief Therapist.

I thank our Lord Jesus Christ for teaching me daily to praise and adore Him whenever I have no money left to spend on anything (including my basic needs) because through it He can show me that He is my Chief Provider.

I thank our Lord Jesus Christ for teaching me daily to praise and adore Him whenever I despair over His answer of "no" to my prayer request to have my full eyesight for the first time, because through my blindness He can show the unsaved world just how much He truly loves them and also show His children how much He can be trusted for the kind of divine guidance, protection and security and spiritual discernment that can only come from Him. I also praise and adore Him for the answer of "No" to my prayer for sight, because through this denial of my wish He can reveal to me daily just how much in control He really is of both my life and of my future.

I thank our Lord Jesus Christ for teaching me daily to praise and adore Him whenever I despair over all the 13 years I've "wasted" being unemployed because of my prolonged disobedience against Him, because through those years of poverty, heartbreak, and days and nights filled with the scornings from employed society, He had taught me that it is perfectly better for me to be God-sufficient instead of SELF-sufficient AND God-confident instead of SELF-confident. And since He had repeatedly confirmed to me that this is exactly how He wants me to live the rest of my days--serving Him full-time daily and trusting Him to provide me with every penny I'll need to fulfill all my financial and practical needs--I now praise and adore Him for giving me more opportunities to learn how to be more GOD-sufficient and GOD-confident than I ever was before.

I thank our Lord Jesus Christ for teaching me daily to praise and adore Him whenever I despair over the emotionally distant and worldly cares-oriented quality of my relationships with my Earthly family members and their casual attitude towards our need to remain in touch with each other long after a death or a hospitalization, because He can use my frequent separation from them to show me that He had already given me a family of my own that is of His own sovereign choosing instead of the members'. My brothers and sisters in the family of Jesus Christ are eternity-minded instead of Earthly-minded, rich in the things of the Spirit instead of just in money and the corruptible, stealable, temporary stuff of this world, and definitely ever-expanding with each new convert to Christianity. I praise and adore Him because whenever I get together with my family in the faith, we can talk intimately about the things that'll really count for eternity instead of just the things that'll be destroyed at the end of this age. I praise and adore Him because I have more in common with my family in Him than I do with my Earthly family. I praise and adore Him because, with my Church family, I don't have to pretend to be somebody whom my Earthly family wants me to be in order for them to relate to: a sighted, supertalkative, beer-drinking, cigarette-smoking, extroverted person who has the ability to drive a car, give someone nieces and nephews or grandkids and an in-law, find a job quickly without assistance from a special agency for the disabled, own a home and/or lots of material things, etc.

Finally, I thank our Lord Jesus Christ for teaching me daily to praise and adore Him whenever I face the temptation to pray only for myself because of all the setbacks I live with daily, because He will always provide me with the escape of praying for other people. Praying for others first before myself always makes Him much bigger than just how much of Him I allow to fit into my little me-centered world.

FG brethren, God bless each of you and take care!

in Christ my True Everything,
Jolene.

The LORD is my strength and my shield;
My heart trusts in Him, and I am helped;
Therefore my heart exults, And with my song I shall thank Him.--Psalm 28:7 (NASB)