GET CONNECTED

This last week was Thanksgiving and for all my family, its not just a time to eat but a time to laugh. My sisters and brother sat at the table and played a game called Left-Center-Right with all of the in laws. It’s a dice game where literally anybody can end up with the prize at the end. As we laughed and made outrageous noises at each roll of the dice, I caught a glimpse of my mother and grandmother. They were sitting there quietly smiling and watching those of us at the table enjoy each other like only we can.

My mom is in her sixties, my grandmother in her eighties and all of us kids are in our forties now. I’m not sure how Mom and Nana thought our family would turn out but I think that one scene in mama’s house on Thanksgiving day was as much of a success story as any mama or grand mama can ever hope for. -They have kids that love each other.

This, in fact, is actually a picture of heaven. Everything in the Kingdom of Heaven is first about family and everything is relational. I think a lot of us bible thumpers have caused a lot of good people to miss the point of how it all works. Everything in the Kingdom is in relationship with the King or else it aint in the kingdom at all.
God is absolutely over the top about being a Father first and restoring his family so we can all sit at the same table.

I am not saying there will be a dice game, but the picture of success that He has as a Father is that same picture of success I described of my Mother and Grand mother.

When you really believe that everything in the Kingdom is first relational, you begin to come to some off the wall conclusions about how things work. Things like: God Values restoration over punishment. ( Turns out, he’s not Zeus, He’s Jesus. Who knew?)

God would rather call you family than call you a servant. ( yeah, it turns out he made angels to be servants and you and I to be Kings and priests and live in His house as family. Help me get the word out about that.)

God doesn’t move through a good church service He moves through good relationships in a church service. ( Believe it or not He wasn't faking when He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane that we would become one even as the father and Him are one. That’s a big shocker since most of us in the body of Christ think we are supposed to be the bloods and the crips. )


The great commandment is not the great commission which is to reach the world, the great commandment is found in Matthew 22:37 which says, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’

All of this kind of stuff gets you into big trouble because it means we actually have to love each other. I think most of us would rather have our knees drained than actually be held responsible for loving the people around us. We love John 3:16 which is all about how God loves us but very few of us want to quote 1st John 3:16.

By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
1st John 3:16

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Thinking on Thanks

So Thanksgiving has come again and found us abundantly blessed. Most of our abundance remains as an extra pant size or more junk in our trunk but I still buy into the abundance thing. I had some friends from east Africa staying with me and they found the whole Thanks-giving holiday a miraculous event. - That a nation would actually put together an official holiday where people give thanks. Amazing.

I of course explained that non-Christians are not obligated to be thankful to anyone in particular but have pretty much agreed to be generally thankful. It’s kind of like being generally married, I think. Weird I know but secular or sacred, I love Thanksgiving.

Anyway I would like to generally share some wide-ranging thoughts on thankfulness in general. Being thankful is not just a character trait but also an emotional and spiritual gold mine. These are points I consider worth sipping on in this weeks confession from a highly-caffeinated Christian.

(1) You can’t be thankful and miserable at the same time.

One of the neat things about an attitude of gratitude is a move towards thankfulness is a move away from misery. It’s a lot like trying to whistle and sing at the same time.

(2) The opposite of thankfulness is not being unthankful….it’s selfishness.

Being thankful turns your attention to how awesome God is and from what you don’t have to what you do have. It also launches you into a self-realization that none of us are self-made men or women. We are abundantly blessed.

(3) A huge key to being thankful is choosing to see the truth over the facts.

Jesus doesn’t say you shall know the facts and the facts will set you free. There’s a big difference and it takes intentional faith to choose the truth over the facts.

(4) Thanksgiving is the gateway to God’s manifest presence.

The Bible says over and over again that we enter into His courts and through his gates via thanksgiving. If that’s true, and I think it is, it is also true a sure fire pathway to the other direction is through griping and complaining. I can’t tell you how many times I have sent my thought life to hell by partnering with the enemy in refusing to be thankful.

(5) Learning to be thankful in all things, is knowing who is with you in all things.

When the disciples thought they were going to drown they woke up Jesus and asked why He didn’t care. He calmed the storm and asked them where their faith was. The point was not that he could calm the storm. The point was that if He was in the boat, the outcome was certain. If you can’t thank God for all things, we can at least thank Him in all things.

A word worth its weight in gold.

There once was a guy named Rudyard Kipling who lived from 1865 to 1936. He was English, yet born in Bombay, India. He eventually became a successful writer and is the author of books like Captain Courageous, How the Leopard Got His Spots, and The Jungle Books.

Kipling’s writings not only made him famous but also brought him a fortune. A newspaper reporter came up to him once and said, "Mr. Kipling, I just read that somebody calculated that the money you make from your writings amounts to over one hundred dollars a word.”

The reporter reached into his pocket and pulled out a one hundred-dollar bill and gave it to Kipling and said, “Here’s a one hundred dollar bill, Mr. Kipling. Now you give me one of your hundred dollar words.”

Rudyard Kipling looked at the money, put it in his pocket and said, "Thanks!"

It is in that vein that the Brewer says a hearty Texas “Thank You” to those of you who look to the Fresh from the Brewer column each week for your sip from the Master’s cup.

Contact the Brewer at www.FreshFromTheBrewer.com

*This article will appear in newspapers the week of 12/04/08