21 Days of Gratitude – Day 6

Today Oak Tree is thankful for:

Seeing CAP clients getting their lives back on track.

You can join in with us on Facebook or in the forum on the website by telling us:

What are You thankful for?

Here we are on day 6 of our 21Days of Gratitude

Our attitude to thankfulness is often shaped by our moods. If great stuff is happening, we have a strong urge to be thankful. I have a friend who told me the other day that when she looks at her newborn son, she feels this great sense of thankfulness for his little life. As she doesn’t believe in God, she doesn’t know who to thank! But she has an inate need to thank someone.

But when life seems tough, we need to have a discipline of thankfulness. It is hard to think of the positive things we have and life’s difficulties often overshadow the good things.

But cultivating thankfulness can shape our moods. Sometimes in my journal, I will take a whole page and just write down all the things I am thankful for and I see that my mood lightens and I see things with a bigger perspective.

As we are thankful today, may it lift our eyes and shape our mood for the better.

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21 Days of Gratitude – Day 5

Today Oak Tree is thankful for:

Days off to rest.

You can join in with us on Facebook or in the forum on the website by telling us:

What are You thankful for?

Here we are on day 5 of our 21Days of Gratitude

In Romans 1:21-25, Paul writes about what happens when we don’t glorify God or give thanks to him. He says  that we worship created things rather than the Creator.

The past few weeks at Oak Tree we’ve been talking about idols. The stuff that demands our time, our energy and become things we worship before God. When we don’t give thanks for what we do have, the stuff we don’t have but want can easily become an idol. The bigger house, better salary, dream career, longed for baby or wife/husband or even the successful church ministry. Even if we do get those things, we are quickly disatisfied and move on to longing for the next bigger, better thing.

Paul wrote from jail, in his letter to the Philippians, that he had learned to be content whatever the circumstances. (Philippians 4:11) Thankfulness is key to learning Godly contentment and keeping our worship on God and not the things we long for. We pray that our thankfulness today would turn our worship back to the one who deserves it and free us from worshipping stuff that will never satisfy.

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21 Days of Gratitude – Day 4

Today Oak Tree is thankful for:

Opportunities to speak God’s truth to others.

You can join in with us on Facebook or in the forum on the website by telling us:

What are You thankful for?

Here we are on day 4 of our 21Days of Gratitude

In Romans 1:21-25, Paul writes about what happens when we don’t glorify God or give thanks to him. He says it that we exchange the truth of God for a lie.

When we aren’t thankful, we start to believe lies like ‘God hasn’t blessed me’, ‘God doesn’t care about me’, ‘God is punishing me’, ‘God doesn’t have my best interests at heart.’ We start to believe things that are not true about God. Things about his character, his will, his sovereignty.

The great truth is that God takes great delight in us (Zephaniah 3:17), that every good and perfect gift we have is from him (James 1:17), his will for our lives is good and pleasing and perfect (Romans 12:2).

As we thank God today, let’s get rid of the lies and exchange them for the exciting truth.

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21 Days of Gratitude – Day 3

Today Oak Tree is thankful for:

An awesome staff team.

You can join in with us on Facebook or in the forum on the website by telling us:

What are You thankful for?

Here we are on day 3 of our 21Days of Gratitude

In Romans 1:21-25, Paul writes about what happens when we don’t glorify God or give thanks to him. The second thing he says it that our foolish hearts are darkened.

When we dwell on what we don’t have and forget all that is good in our lives, our hearts become despairing, self-pitying and heavy. Our whole mood becomes darker and life seems a struggle. Thankfulness is the antidote and as we give thanks to God for all the good stuff, that darkness of heart is lifted. We pray that your hearts may be lightened today.

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21 Days of Gratitude – Day 2

Today Oak Tree is thankful for:

The support of friends.

You can join in with us on Facebook or in the forum on the website by telling us:

What are You thankful for?

Here we are on day 2 of our 21Days of Gratitude

In Romans 1:21-25, Paul writes about what happens when we don’t glorify God or give thanks to him. The first thing he says it that  thinking becomes futile.

When I read this, I’m reminded that when I’m not thankful, I start to look at the bad stuff in my life and worry about it. Worry is futile thinking! Mark Philps said at staff retreat last week ‘we live under the illusion that if we worry, we’ve got it under control.’ The reality is that we can never control anything by worrying about it. As you choose to be thankful today, give your worries back to God and let him be in control again.

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21 Days of Gratitude – Day 1

Today Oak Tree is thankful for:

The joy of technology to build community.

You can join in with us on Facebook or in the forum on the website by telling us:

What are You thankful for?

Last week, the staff took some time out of the busy office to pray and worship together. We had a brilliant time and  our speaker for the day, Mark Philps from Christ Church in Harrow, shared his insights into the role of thanksgiving in keeping us close to God. Mark Aldridge mentioned this in his blog last week too.

Mark Philps told us his congregation had had 21 Days of Gratitude to help them engage again with being thankful and we loved the idea. So we would love you to join us in making time each day for the next 21 days to reflect on what you are thankful to God for in the previous 24 hours, or in general. We will be putting a blog up with our thoughts and reflections each week day.

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Gratitude is a gateway

Dear Oaks,

As a staff team we went away on Tuesday for a day of prayer, worship, reflection and eating!  Sadly Teresa who is on honeymoon and Tony who is on a course could not join us.  But Mark, Carrie, Ruth and Thalie joined me for an enjoyable and profitable day.

As part of it we asked Mark Philps a local vicar to come and speak to us.  The Lord led him to talk about thanksgiving, it was a very timely word!

I don’t know if you are a half full or half empty sort of person but all of us are prone to forgetting and overlooking the goodness of God.  As in any relationship so much can be taken for granted.

It is thanksgiving that corrects our perspective on life when we can only see the disappointments and it takes us from a place of discouragement to a place of praise. The psalmist tells us

“let us come before him with thanksgiving” and “enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name” (Psalm 100).

Gratitude is a gateway in to the presence of God.

We are looking at ways that we can post daily “thank yous” on our OT web site so look out for this new feature!  In the meantime a man called Ignatius did what he called a prayer of examine.  This required him looking back over his day and taking stock of every little thing he could thank God for.  Why not give it a go?

And finally, on Sunday we shall be having a South African Service, with food from that country available to nibble throughout. So if you like Biltong or want to try a SA pudding leave a space in your stomach.  Our guest speaker will be the excellent Nigel Juckes who leads the New Wine work in that country.

In the Fathers love,

Mark

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