Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day (Thursday 09/02/2010)

It Should Already Be Personal…

Luke 17:11-20 (New King James Version)

¹¹ Now it happened as He went to Jerusalem that He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. ¹² Then as He entered a certain village, there met Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off. ¹³ And they lifted up their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”
¹⁴ So when He saw them, He said to them, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed.
¹⁵ And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, ¹⁶ and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan.
¹⁷ So Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? ¹⁸ Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?” ¹⁹ And He said to him, “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.”

I use to get teased by my family members because when they ask me to lead in prayer, they said I sound like my late Grandma James, I was getting to God at whatever cost, it didn’t matter…Well there was a time that some of my family members would laugh if my prayers were what they felt were a little long, or I thank God one too many times, because the food was getting cold, or I shed some tears during a family prayer because I was grateful. I had to come to a place where I began to understand that my understanding, my relationship and what I felt for God was personal, that no one had to encourage me to make it personal it was already very personal. I stopped making excuses and began to say don’t ask me to pray if you are going to have a commentary. What I have flows out of me to the one who has saved me from much and quickened the dead places in me and has set me free in so many other areas and loves me UNCONDITIONALLY, and I am grateful.

We often want to try to put people in a box by saying “it doesn’t take all of that.” Well I have learned through my own experiences and watching others come through things, that we don’t know what it takes. It is personal! When God delivers us from much and does much for us, we should feel a sense of gratitude, appreciations, praise and worship that springs forth out of our being. I have a girlfriend that when we get on the phone or anywhere and begin to talk about the goodness of the Lord you just about need a weight to hold her down or some ropes to tie her up…She is so excited and so full of love for the Father, tears of joy will full and she carries her own personal worship experience EVERYWHERE she goes. She refuses to let anyone stifle her praise! That is the way it should be. She has been through a lot and God has seen her through a lot and saved her from a lot, she understands how far He has brought her and what it means to have God in her life. For too many of us we do not understand what it means to have God in our lives, we take Him for granted, we wouldn’t even open our mouths to Him if He allowed someone to walk up to us and give us a million dollar check. We complain about so much of what we don’t have we forget to see all that He has given us and the abundant blessings he has bestowed upon us. But if for one minute we remembered that all God needs to do is forget about us we would cease to exist, we should be so grateful that this one thought should invoke a praise in us that no one could shut up.

J. Moss said it best, “there is a praise on the inside and that I can’t keep it to myself. A holler stirring up, from the depths of my soul. So excuse me if I seem a little giddy or maybe even strange but praise is the way I say thanks.” It should be personal, when we look over our lives, we should see a lot that is worthy of God getting praise and unfettered worship that He so deserves out of us. So before we look at someone else and utter it doesn’t take all of that, we should examine ourselves and realize we may not be giving all it takes to show our gratitude!