Devotional Blog

Happy Thanksgiving

11/24/2021

Two words can wonderfully and powerfully change your life. Two words can change your perspective and touch lives around you with love and joy. What are those two words? -- Thank you! Learning to thank God and others is one of the great keys to a happy life and a hallmark of a life of greatness. There is no better time of the year to make a change in your outlook on life or renew your focus on gratitude. Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday to be with family and friends, to enjoy a great meal and spend quality time together, but it is also a time to renew a spirit of thankfulness. Thanksgiving reminds us that one of the great secrets in life is living with an attitude of gratitude. Early pilgrims faced a grueling winter their first year in America enduring a harsh New England winter and the loss of many family and friends, yet chose to continue to have a deep faith in God and an attitude of gratitude. In the spring their new Native American friends showed them how to plant corn with a more plentiful harvest. That first harvest they reached out with an attitude of thankfulness and invited these new friends to a wonderful feast of thanksgiving celebrating God’s goodness and provision. Living with an attitude of gratitude is more than a once-a-year thing, it is learning to focus on the things for which we have to be thankful each and every day, and allowing that attitude of gratitude to touch the heart and lives of those around us. We all have so much to be thankful for: gifts and talents, friends and family, seasons of the year and seasons of life…Take a moment to say two words that can rekindle your joy for living and brighten someone’s day--thank you!…And take a moment to say thank you to God. . . Whatever your circumstances know that God loves you and God is there to see you through. Take a moment each day to say thank you to God. You will discover a deeper power and greater joy in your life! Surrounded by the cold, dark walls of an ancient Roman prison, the Apostle Paul writes these surprising words of encouragement to people undergoing adversity and persecution:

(Verse of the week)
Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for us in Christ Jesus. (1Thessalonians 5.18)

Wishing you and your family a Happy Thanksgiving!
--Pastor TJ

(Prayer of the week)
Gracious and loving God, thank you for the many blessings with which you have touched my life. Thank you for the challenges of life that shape and strengthen me. Give me faith to trust in your plan and your strength. Mold me and make me that others may see your true reflection in me. Most of all may I experience your great love anew every day. May I be joyful in all things, and may I treat others with love that they may see the light of your love in me. Amen.

(quote of the week)
Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulty. Happiness cannot come from without. It must come from within.—Helen Keller

Listen to recent sermons by Dr. TJ Jenney at YouTube &
http://inspiresundaymessages.blogspot.com/
Check the latest leadership blog by Dr. TJ http://www.drtj.us

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Fall Colors

11/18/2021

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I love the colors of fall and recently spent some time walking along Lisa’s Faith and Fitness Trail, a beautiful trail around our church campus, just enjoying the beautiful fall colors. I would like to invite you to take a moment and enjoy the beauty of creation during these later days of fall. The colors are truly beautiful. My favorite are the reds and yellows especially together. But it’s all beautiful. It’s as if God invited the sunset and the sunrise to color the trees. But here’s the thing--Sooner or later, hopefully later, the colors will fade, and the leaves will fall, and we will have to wait until next year to enjoy them again. So, take a moment and enjoy it with your family on a nice walk. Some of the folks have put up some scarecrows just to make your walk more fun and enjoyable. Here’s a positive word for your journey from the psalms--

This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it (Psalm 118:24)

So, don’t wait. Put aside some of the busyness and enjoy the beautiful fall colors. Take some quiet time to reflect on the beauty of creation and let it whisper to you the blessings of the Creator . . . or don’t forget to enjoy it in the company of those you love . . .

(Prayer)
Lord, thank you for the beauty of creation. Help me to take some time and just enjoy it and reflect on your love and the love of others you have placed in my life.

(quote of the week)
The only enemy we have is the one whose story we have not heard-- Quaker saying

Listen to recent sermons by Dr. TJ Jenney at YouTube &
http://inspiresundaymessages.blogspot.com/
Check the latest leadership blog by Dr. TJ http://www.drtj.us/

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Song

11/11/2021

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Have you ever heard a familiar song that you loved and felt a new strength and vitality to face the day? The prophet Isaiah must have known what that was like. He writes, “The Lord is my strength and my song.” What magnificent words from the prophet. Isaiah had discovered that God gives us the strength to persevere through difficulties. As someone once said, it is not how able we are but how able God is. But it does not stop there . . . God’s love also gives us the song that gives us joy in the darkest night. Take a moment and re-discover and reconnect with God’s strength and God’s love. You don’t have to do it alone. God is there in strength and love. Discover new strength and a new song in your heart. Discover the strength and the song that God’s Spirit can give.

(Verse of the week)
The Lord, my Lord is my salvation
I will not be afraid
The Lord is my strength and my song
He has become my salvation -- Isaiah 12.2

(Prayer of the week)
Gracious God of love and mercy, thank you that in any storm there is stillness in your arms of love and hope surrounded by your power. Strengthen me to face the challenges of life. And may your love fill my life that I can be a beacon of hope in my life. In everything I do may others see your love and grace in me. Amen.

Have a blessed week—Pastor TJ

(quote of the week)
It is not how much you do, but how much love we put in the doing. It is not how much we give, but how much love we put in the giving --Mother Teresa

Listen to recent sermons by Dr. TJ Jenney at YouTube &
http://inspiresundaymessages.blogspot.com/
Check the latest leadership blog by Dr. TJ http://www.drtj.us/

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Autumn Blessings

11/4/2021

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As a person that loves warmer temperatures, the bright sun, and all the grandeur of summer, I tend to hold on tenaciously to summer. But there’s a time when the brisk cool breeze, smell of wood burning in the fireplace, and colors of the autumn leaves, invariably win me over. I have a cup of hot cider or pumpkin spiced latte, sit back and think to myself, autumn is here, it’s time to enjoy the beauty of the season before the colors fade to winter. I enjoy the fall festivals and the roadside crafts, and my favorite, a relaxing drive down a country road that winds through fields with famers harvesting crops and forests with trees bundled in fall colors.
It reminds me that each season of the year has its special beauty and its own unique blessings. It also reminds me that each season of life has its special blessings to be enjoyed. More often than not we tend to look to the past or press to the future and forget to simply be present in the moment and enjoy God’s many blessings. I invite you to lean into the moment and enjoy the beauty of creation, the warmth of family, and the blessings of hearth and home. Make every day a special day and give thanks to God for His manifold blessings. God is good. All the time.

(scripture of the week)
“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to reap,
a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up,
a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to gain and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to cast away,
a time to rend and a time to sew, a time to keep silence and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.
What do workers gain from their toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-11)

(prayer of the week)
Lord, help us to embrace each season of life and live each day to the fullest. Help us to thank you for the blessings and to lean into your strength for the battles. Thank you for the gift of life itself, and help us to live each day as a gift given to others and to you, in your name, Amen.

Blessings in Christ–Pastor TJ

God's grace, unsought and unearned, blows through my life,
and all I need to do is raise my sails
to catch the full wind- Catharine of Siena

Listen to recent sermons by Dr. TJ Jenney at YouTube &
http://inspiresundaymessages.blogspot.com/
Check the latest leadership blog by Dr. TJ http://www.drtj.us

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