Thought Quotient

Do you suffer from dead-dog-itis?

2 Samuel 9:8

Mephibosheth bowed down and said, “What is your servant, that you should notice a dead dog like me?

Do you believe you are not worthy of God’s grace? (Remember, if any of us were worthy, it wouldn’t be grace!)

Check out this video about God’s grace:

• Outrageous Grace

Here’s the scripture that is used as the background for the video message:


2 Samuel chapter 9

Now David said, “Is there still anyone who is left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan’s sake?”
And there was a servant of the house of Saul whose name was Ziba. So when they had called him to David, the king said to him, “Are you Ziba?”
He said, “At your service!”
Then the king said, “Is there not still someone of the house of Saul, to whom I may show the kindness of God?”
And Ziba said to the king, “There is still a son of Jonathan who is lame in his feet.”
So the king said to him, “Where is he?”
And Ziba said to the king, “Indeed he is in the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, in Lo Debar.”
Then King David sent and brought him out of the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, from Lo Debar.
Now when Mephibosheth the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, had come to David, he fell on his face and prostrated himself. Then David said, “Mephibosheth?”
And he answered, “Here is your servant!”
So David said to him, “Do not fear, for I will surely show you kindness for Jonathan your father’s sake, and will restore to you all the land of Saul your grandfather; and you shall eat bread at my table continually.”
Then he bowed himself, and said, “What is your servant, that you should look upon such a dead dog as I?”
And the king called to Ziba, Saul’s servant, and said to him, “I have given to your master’s son all that belonged to Saul and to all his house. You therefore, and your sons and your servants, shall work the land for him, and you shall bring in the harvest, that your master’s son may have food to eat. But Mephibosheth your master’s son shall eat bread at my table always.” Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants.
Then Ziba said to the king, “According to all that my lord the king has commanded his servant, so will your servant do.”
“As for Mephibosheth,” said the king, “he shall eat at my table like one of the king’s sons.” Mephibosheth had a young son whose name was Micha. And all who dwelt in the house of Ziba were servants of Mephibosheth. So Mephibosheth dwelt in Jerusalem, for he ate continually at the king’s table. And he was lame in both his feet.

We learn that when we choose to accept the gift of grace, we experience the promise of God’s word. What are you choosing to do with God’s gift of grace?

Romans 6:23

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Like Mephibosheth, we’ve all been given a mind boggling invitation to come and leave our current position in life and to be repositioned as a son and daughter of the king!

When was the last time you joyously gave thanks to God?

How often do we get excited over a movie, television program, or sporting event, and yet remain silent about the many blessings God sends our way? As His children, we ought to make praising our heavenly Father a daily priority of our lives.

Remember, God chose to display grace to us. He sent His son to die as a substitutionary sacrifice - Jesus took upon Himself the penalty that we owed for our sin. He gave us a purpose for living and delivered us from ruined, meaningless lives. And He offered us hope, not only for our earthly lives, but also for eternity.

-Charles Stanley, In Touch Ministries

Colossians 1:11-14

May you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light. For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.

Let’s not forget that this Thanksgiving. Here are some good words from Rebecca St. James…

Our day to day lives can easily get too complex. Too busy. Too full. Too complicated. Every now and then we need to get off the train of activity, slow down and pause to think about all the amazing blessings God brings into our lives every day. It’s easy to coast through life until we have a reality check and see just how much we have been given. These moments of realization, of gratitude, are my most intense times of worship. Times when I’m really thanking God and deeply praising Him.

I wrote a song –Thank You—which I recorded with TobyMac on my If I Had One Chance To Tell You Something album. After I wrote the song I was out riding my bike weeks later and the lyrics really began to personally minister to me.

Something I know is amiss in my soul.
My eyes are on me.
This should not be.
I’ll praise you from the center of my fire.

Even while we were still working on the album, this lyric stayed with me—it was a continual reminder to praise God and thank Him form the center of the challenges in my life. To find God’s blessings even in what feels like a valley. I love that challenge. It’s something we all need to be reminded of continually.

We tend to get in trouble when we spend too much time with our eyes focused on ourselves, rather than dwelling on the things that most please God. You might be going through the “center of the fire” right now, or you may feel as though you are on top of the world. Either way, we are admonished to give thanks in all things (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Being thankful to God should help motivate us to want to live lives of purity before Him. It is because of all that He has done for us that we want to please Him with our attitudes, words, and actions.

Psalm 136 is a great Psalm to meditate on when the theme for the day is thanksgiving. In these twenty-six verses the psalmist itemizes all the good things God has done for which he is grateful: God’s goodness, His sovereignty over all, His great wonders, His creation of Heaven and earth, the sun and the moon, His deliverance of His people from Egypt, His victories in the Promised Land, and the freedom He offers to His people. He realizes that God’s people are to be in a continual attitude of thanksgiving.

When was the last time you listed on a piece of paper all the things for which you are thankful? Think of the huge blessings in your life as well as the little ones, the ones you often take for granted (like clean drinking water and shelter), as well as the ones you thank God for everyday. Write them all down. Then place the list inside your Bible. The next time you are going through the “center of the fire,” pull the list out and give thanks to God again for your circumstances.

In fact, my friends—as we celebrate Thanksgiving this week—let’s take the challenge to celebrate with our own individual unique and wonderful “thanksgiving lists” of all the things we are personally grateful to God for!

Thanksgiving blessings!

Rebecca

I thought I would take a few minutes this morning before heading out of town for Thanksgiving this coming week to catch up with you all! The house is quiet for the moment and all I hear is the rushing of the water in the washing machine. Now, most importantly, I must quiet my heart once again.

The Lord has been doing so much in me from so many different angles. Do you ever feel a stirring in your spirit but you’re not exactly sure how to put your finger on it? That’s how I feel right now. God has been showing me Himself in so many little ways, but the overall message that I’m getting is “I want to you to be near Me.” In the Tabernacle study I’m doing (Beth Moore), it’s all about the incredible fact that everything God did from the beginning of “time,” as we know it, was to be near us! From the Garden, as He walked among the trees in the cool of the day, to His command for the Israelites to create a Tabernacle that He might dwell there and meet with them. And, of course, to JESUS - the ultimate demonstration of His desire to be close to us once again, to not be separated by this ugly thing called “sin.” Now, this might sound simplistic and you might be thinking…”well, that’s nothing new, Shannon! Duh!” But, even though I have served Him my whole life. it is as if He is revealing this to me in a new way. I can hardly explain it, but I feel a deeper sense of His love toward me than I ever have and it’s SO GOOD!

Because I am sensing Him drawing me nearer and nearer, I am also hearing Him say…”draw near me…and be like me.” In other words, “I am calling you to a deeper level of holiness and fruitfulness in your life.” Things that might have seemed OK in the past, or seem OK to other believers may not be OK - certain TV shows, certain ways of joking, certain attitudes…the list could go on. And I’m not meaning this in a legalistic, stuck-in-the-mud way, but I feel the Lord saying to His Bride…”Prepare yourself…allow me to prune away those things that aren’t pleasing to me…because I love you and I want to be near you. Be holy as I am holy.”

I feel like I’m not expressing this well, because I’m still processing so much of it. But one thing I do know is that God is drawing me and drawing you near. He longs to be near His children, to reveal the secrets of His heart to us. He longs for us to delight ourselves in Him, to worship at His feet, to choose the “one thing” that will satisfy. There is no substitute. Oh…I may try to substitute this joy with other things like chocolate (I try that one way too much), shopping, friends, family, money…but nothing will EVER satisfy except Jesus. And He waits for us…He calls to us…He longs to be written upon every page of our story, for us to awaken with Him, interact with Him all day long, and to close our eyes at night breathing our last words of the day to Him.

In closing, I want to wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving week next week. I know, all too well, that the Holidays can be a painful time for many of you for so many different reasons. For me, the pain of infertility stung every time a holiday rolled around. At times, the pain of my parents divorcing STILL rolls around. And for those of you who have lost loved ones or have estranged relationships, these days can be difficult. But they are also an opportunity. An opportunity to draw near the spout of Living Water and let Him pour Himself into you and fill you - every nook and cranny of your life and heart. I believe that in our pain and suffering, Christ has the greatest opportunity to show us all that He is. So, with thanksgiving let us face this week, this month, this year, this life….because He will supply ALL that we need according to His riches in Christ Jesus. Love you all!
- Shannon Wexelberg

“But one simple truth has done more to take me to deep levels of freedom than anything else –I don’t get to decide if God loves me. My children don’t get to decide if I love them. With God, I have two choices at any given moment and in any given circumstance. I can either accept His love or I can reject it. Guess which way leads to freedom? The things I have learned about God’s love through my children should keep me writing songs for at least another couple of decades.” - Dennis Jernigan

My mom always talked about God, but the struggles that we went through pushed me so far that I didn’t believe there was a loving God. I didn’t want anything to do with what my mom had talked about. I wanted to establish that I had my own [identity].

I was anti-Christian. I never saw anything attractive in the people who said they were Christians. All I saw from Christianity among the people was judgment and hypocrisy. I didn’t feel acceptance from people. I didn’t feel loved. I didn’t see grace at all.

When I understood grace, it made me believe in a loving God. I saw God chasing me and loving me through the events in my life. I was ready to give up. God showed himself in that moment, and I experienced Him as a personal God. For the first time, I was in His presence. I understood who I was and how imperfect the love that I thought I had from my boyfriend and family members was. God’s love is so much beyond what I could have imagined.

- Lacey Mosley, FLYLEAF

Read the rest of the interview here:

• From Death to Life