Thanksgiving.

Several further references for the role of thankfulness in sanctification:

RCL booklet: "Thankfulness." I read it this morning, and she has some really good points. It's definitely worth reading.

I also wrote this Peacemeal for the week; it was a fun chance to try to crystallize some thoughts and encourage people.

Had a good time today giving thanks; just like Easter, this should be a holiday that is celebrated in our hearts all year round. At our Thanksgiving service for church, there were several beautiful testimonies to the evidences of God's grace in the lives of individuals in our church and our church as a whole. What a joy it is to be a part of a church where people are clamoring to praise God for the privilege of being a part of this body. Fittingly, one sweet little girl closed the time of sharing with (paraphrased), "I'm thankful for who God is, because without him, we wouldn't have any of these reasons to give thanks."

May God enlarge our hearts to know him, so that greater worship and thanksgiving will flow from our love!

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Eph 3:14-21)