Some thoughts for the new year. Psalm 100 instructs us to enter His gates with thanksgiving and enter his courts with praise.
Giving thanks is gratitude for the good God has shown us personally. Make a list of your favorite things; friends and family; God's recent provision; your favorite foods; beautiful things; your recent experience of forgiveness; miracles in your life; health and senses; your gifts and talents; awareness of God's protection; God's communication of love; your treasures in heaven. Now thank the Lord using your list.
Giving praise is proclaiming God's attributes and character in His presence. Read Psalm 103 to find fresh ideas on these. Make a list from the Psalm and praise the Lord using these.
One idea to help us pray for others, is to make cards with pictures of "Our house", "God's house", and the "Governor's house" following are some examples.
Our house
God's house
Governor's house
Want to improve your prayer life? Francois Fenelon a 17th Century Frenchman, tells us how:
Tell God all that is in your heart, as one unloads one's heart, it's pleasures and it's pains, to a dear friend;
Tell Him your troubles that He may comfort you;
Tell Him your longings that He may purify them;
Tell Him your dislikes that He may help you conquer them;
Tell Him your temptations that He may shield you from them;
Show Him the wounds of your soul that He may heal them;
Lay bare your indifference to good, your taste for evil, your instability;
Tell Him how self-love makes you unjust to others, how vanity tempts you to be insincere, how pride hides you from yourself and from others;
If you thus pour out all your weaknesses, needs and troubles, there will be no lack of what to say. You will never exhaust the subject, for it is continually being renewed. People who have no secrets from each other never want for subjects of conversation. They do not weigh their words, for there is nothing to be held back. Neither do they seek for something to say. They talk out of the abundance of their heart. Without consideration they simply say just what they think. When they ask, they ask in faith, confident that they will be heard. Blessed are those who attain to such familiar, unreserved, communication with God!
