Good Morning
Stand with me and lift your bible and repeat after me.
This is my Bible.
I am what it says I am.
I can do what it says I can do.
I am going to learn how to be what it says I can be.
Today I will learn more of the word of God.
The indestructible, never ending, living word Of God.
I will never be the same.
I will never be the same.
In Jesus Name
Amen?
Good morning to you all.
Everything we experience in life is part of the blessings we get while we live our lives and sometimes, we need to stop and think about them and say, “Thank You”. To the Lord.
Open your Bibles to 1st Corinthians chapter 9 and say, “Amen” when you are there.
Let’s go to verse 23 and read it together.
1st Corinthians 9:23
“I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.”
That is what life is about.
The blessings.
My Aunt Anna is still part of my life today. She met Uncle Jules, an Italian gentleman who was serving in the United States Army at the end of World War 1 in Germany. They fell in love while he was serving there, and the two of them came to the United States with her two brothers joining them.
My Aunt Anna’s spaghetti sauce was a wonder to behold. Once a month our family would always gather around for a huge dinner at their house that was more of a feast than a meal. For hours, the smell of the simmering sauce would fill the house and I would breathe in deep with delight.
My Aunt Anna would slowly cook Italian sausages, meatballs, potatoes, and pieces of chicken in it too. Then she would boil enough pasta to feed a small army and slice the loaves of Italian bread she had baked earlier. When I finally sat down at the table, I could feel my taste buds jumping for joy in my mouth. By the time dinner was done both my stomach and my heart would be full of happiness. I remember her saying to me, “God has great plans for you.”
My Aunt Anna passed away in the mid 90’s and for years I tried to duplicate my Anna’s recipe but was never able to get it exactly right. I would try always measure out just the right amounts of garlic, parsley, bay leaves, salt, sugar, pepper, and olive oil to add to the tomato sauce. I would simmer it slowly and stir it with care, but it never came out as good as hers.
Finally, one day it dawned on me that I was missing the secret ingredient that made hers so special: her love.
You see, Aunt Anna always served her spaghetti with a big smile, a gentle hug, and the loving words: “Mangia! Mangia!” Which meant “Eat! Eat!” I could always taste her love for us in every bite.
But it really was the blessings from her loving us.
Love is a blessing and the secret ingredient in life’s recipe from God. The more you love, the more your life will taste like joy.
The more love you give to others, the more your days will become a feast of happiness that never ends.
The more love you share, the more you become like the greatest chef of all: God.
I will probably think about Aunt Anna’s sauce again the next time I have spaghetti. Whatever I have it will never taste the same as hers, but the smell of it cooking will bring back the memories of her love and laughter.
My wife and best friend, makes great pasta meals and what she does every day in her ways of loving me and others adds to the great memories that I have in my life.
But what goes along with that is all the other things that we each of us have learned through what has happened in our lives through the Lord.
And while I am slowly enjoying my next pasta meal, I may think about Aunt Anna, but the blessing now is better.
I know the Lord is first in my life today.
I did not know Him then, but I learned about love as I grew up from many people and when I ask the Lord to take over my life, it became permanent. His love is never ending.
I heard story a while ago about a young boy who in the early 1930” s worked in a grocery store after school every day. He was 12 years old, and he was hating every minute of working there but it helped his family stay together by him earning a few extra dollars each week.
He used to help people by carrying their groceries home to their house if they needed it. One lady used to come into the store, and she always needed his help and she never spoke to him or gave him a tip. She seemed to be mean all the time, but he remembered that his mom told him to be nice like Jesus to everyone. One day she came in and bought only a few items and left the store without her bag or even asking for help. He thought that he had gotten a reprieve, but the manager came over and said that he needed to take the bag to her home.
He peeked in the bag and saw it only had a few odd things like a candy bar, a pencil, and a note pad. Picking the bag up he headed to her home and when he got there, he walked up the steps and knocked on the door. After few minutes he put the bag down and started to walk away but he remembered what his dad had taught him to follow what the owner of the store had taught him. Always make sure that you give the bag to the customer.
He knocked on the door again and waited but no answer. He then remembered again what he had been taught by his dad, knocked very hard where the hinges of the door attach to the house. Still no answer, so he started to walk away and then the door opened and the lady smiled at him and said, “Come with me.” He followed her up several flights of stairs and she showed him that she had put up a rope to hang herself and end her life. She looked at him and said, “God must have wanted you to help me young man. If you had not kept knocking, I would have ended my life. Thank you for being persistent.” She had no family in her life.
They became friends over the years, she attended church with he and his family. She paid for him to go to college and when she passed away, she left him her home and a note that said, “Thanks for showing the love of Jesus.”
The thing I like about our verse that we read and everything else in the Bible, are the many things that are blessings.
Here is what I want to share with you today about the Lord’s blessings......
God is smiling down on you from heaven every time you spend time with Him.
But He also is smiling when we put Him first in what we do and acknowledge Him even for something small that happens.
Our time that we have here on earth can be spent in different ways, but we need to get in the habit of acknowledging Him in what we do and what we see happen in our lives.
Here are a couple of examples I try and remember,
It can be opening the Bible and reading the word that is exactly what we needed to right then and there.
It can be spending time in prayer.
It can be just a thought or a, “Thank you” of what He has done in your life.
It can be hearing a song that is an encouragement.
It may be the opening of a door for someone and them seeing a positive from someone they do not know.
It may be saying, “Thank you” to the person stocking the shelves at the grocery store you are shopping at.
It may be the love in your life and just saying, “Thank you for loving me”.
It may be seeing someone you have been hoping would get to have a relationship with God personally develop it.
Or it may be, being used by Him to bless someone else in life some way with the love of Christ.
That is what we do serving Him in some way. We get closer to Him and see Him using us in ways we may not have expected. Or ways we hoped He would.
God is smiling down each of us and all of those we may never meet that live here on earth that are serving Him in some way from Heaven.
Life is hard right now with what we see in our everyday lives.
But life can be bearable and enjoyable with the Lord being first.
The Lord our God loves you and I more than we can ever imagine.
He sacrificed His son for you and me so we can continue to serve Him in whatever He has called us to do.
You and I are making a difference in the world we live in because we are serving Him.
With all that is going on in life, good or bad, God sent His Son for you and I to be loved and to show and share His love even on the bad days.
Let us Go to the Lord with our prayer needs and to Thanks Him.
Please stand with me and bow your heads.
