Thankful Thursday: And So To Honor Him

Thankful Thursday is a weekly column where I post what I am thankful about that week, and you have the opportunity (via your blog linked into this post OR via a comment on this blog) to share your thankful thought for the week.

Much like I did at Thanksgiving, I put a considerable amount of prayer this week into my Thankful Thursday post for Christmas. It’s not something that I take lightly or feel qualified to do – write a post that truly encompasses the thankfulness that Christmas brings. And I’m sure that I didn’t do it justice. But here’s my best shot:

. . . And So to Honor Him

Last Christmas, our Pastor’s wife, Karon, headed up a project to compile a book written by our Church members. The name of the book was “And So to Honor Him”, and was supposed to represent all of our different ways that we were choosing to Honor Jesus for Christmas.

For some reason, it really took a long time for me to get my head wrapped around the idea of the book, so I regretfully never participated. However, the concept has stuck with me, and was brought back to me this week as I was praying about what to write for this Christmas post.

We all know the “gift” that God gave us for Christmas. His Son, Jesus Christ, came to earth, laying in a manger. . . we could all probably quote those passages. But, much like I had trouble grasping the concept of Karon’s book, I wonder how much we grasp the concept of what the gift of Christ really means and does in our lives?

Ephesians 1:3-14 is kind of like the “side of the box” on the present of Jesus Christ. It lists all of the features, bells, and whistles of the gift. I highly recommend reading it, but for the purpose of this post, here is a bullet point list of the features that come with accepting the gift of Christ:

• We are blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ
• We were hand chosen before the creation of the world
• We are holy and blameless in God’s sight
• We are adopted as sons through Christ, which brings God pleasure
• We are freely given grace through Christ
• We are redeemed through Christ’s blood
• Our sins are forgiven according to His rich grace
• God has shown us the mystery of His will through Christ
• He will work everything out according to His will
• We are given a deposit – the Holy Spirit – as a promise of our inheritance

Obviously, we can’t come close to reciprocal gift-giving with a God who gave us the above gift. But thankfully, God didn’t ask for that. He just wants us to give Him our best, which is according to the specific gifts and talents that He has already blessed us with.

For the little drummer boy, his finest gift was to praise Jesus through his music.

For some of us, it may be to encourage or bless others. Or financial giving. Or maybe serving others. For me at this moment, it is writing, and teaching my precious two year old about giving to Jesus. And I will continue to be searching for other ways (as many as possible!!) that I can honor my King who sacrificed so much for me.

I hope that you also can find your way to honor Him this Christmas.

OK – your turn!! What are you thankful for today? Leave it in a comment, or if you have a blog, write a post on your blog and link it in with Mr. Linky (at the bottom of this post), and you can have the pleasure of welcoming my wonderful readers to your site!

To use Mr. Linky to link to your blog, just type in your name in the first slot, then copy and paste the URL of your blog post in the second one and click “Enter” – then there will be a link to your post from my blog! ***be sure to put the link to your actual “Thankful Thursday” post – not just your main blog URL.***