As I was sitting in my living room last night and it was full of people on Thanksgiving eve. I was reminded of Christ's love for me. I was reminded of his promises and the importance of friends and family and fellowship. 

     When I am driving to my house, I often wonder if the engineers and developers really checked the land well before they developed this area near the water. Who decided to build so many houses here so close to the water, on canals and little islands, and is it safe?  When I look at the sinkhole map, I realize we are not really safe and it doesn't matter if you live inland or not, we are literally on shifting sand here in Florida. There are other theories, one being that there are caverns underground that are responsible for this sinkhole activity, but regardless, the ground is shifting under us.  Others about Global Warming and the excessive rain and irrational weather is causing it, but regardless,  we live on shifting sand. 
  
 This week Danny's message was about how we are to build a solid foundation and cling to that in our Christian lives.  In Matthew 7:24-29 Jesus taught through a great parable of the two builders,  one built their house on a foundation that shifts and one built theirs on a firm foundation. 
Christ actually instructed us to build our houses(or our faith) on a firm foundation, on Christian beliefs and his promises and When the rains come,  our house, our physical body, our soul, our heart, our being will not be torn down, but will remain in him and be strong through him.

Nothing less will get us through the perils and disappointments in this world but a solid foundation will. 

 Each week we ride by the underpass on our way to church and we see a good number of homeless people just hanging around and hanging out.  A lot of the team have been wanting to minister to the homeless but we couldn't get a clear picture of what exactly to do for them. After some prayer, we decided to purposely buy extra donuts and make lots of coffee and take whatever we still have after church down to the overpass. We have done this 2 Sundays now and have had good results. 
  I am not sure how many shelters are here but from talking to them, they can only stay at this one particular shelter for 2 weeks and then they have to go somewhere else. There is the salvation army too that I am aware of but not sure of anywhere else. They say that they get pastries often but hardly ever get coffee and were very appreciative for what we offered them. This week, the Sunday before Thanksgiving we are gonna take them a meal. We looked around and there are several Thanksgiving day outreaches, so we wanted to do something different  for them, so Sunday it is, they will not only get coffee, but a warm meal as well.  We are thankful for this opportunity and as we step into the lives of these individuals, we pray that they see Christ. 

 The other night in Bible
study, we talked about success. You see there is a worldly success that we all
have perceived in our mind. That goal that you feel you need to meet. Those
dreams you had as a child and still aim to meet, that income you think you
should make, that degree that you must obtain to get to where you need to be.
It's all tightly tucked away in your mind, constantly reminding you of "how
your life should be". You see we all define success the same(meeting certain
goals) but we also define our own personal success differently. 
   The world defines
success by what type of house you live in , what job you have and is it worthy
enough to buy all that stuff that most of the world thinks we need, the house,
the car, the clothes, the jewelry, game systems, memberships, etc... I could go
on and on. 
    The question is,
what and how do we define spiritual success? In our own personal walk, how would
we feel truly successful as a Christian? A Christ follower? Isn't that more
important than any worldly success? What would that look like?
    As we all went
around answering the question, there was one sure answer that kept coming up and
that was " letting your actions, your life, your walk speak for you". So success
to a majority in our Bible study was not only claiming Christianity and
professing Christ, but walking the walk as well defines success. How true, how
true. 

Danny shared with us scripture
that says: 
May
he equip you with all you need for doing his will. 
May 
he produce in you , through the 
power of Jesus Christ, 
  every good thing that is pleasing to
him.  All 
glory to him forever and ever ! Amen. 
Hebrews 13:21
 You see God
equips us for exactly what we need. To do his will,  he can produce in
you power through Jesus Christ. He does the equipping, nothing of ourselves but
him.
 
      So to me, true
success is being so close to him, (through prayer and reading his word) that you
walk in the cool of the day with him, you hear him, he hears you, you share a
relationship that is far better than anything earthly or worldly. You
will exhibit his qualities, his love, his mercy, grace and hope, total
dependence=true success, that is my desire... to get so close to Him that His
qualities cannot help but show in my life, in my walk and in my
actions.... When we do that..... our actions will not only speak,
but scream true success in Christ !!!

  As I was looking through everyone's Day 1 Thankful posts on Facebook, I realized Thanksgiving will be here before we can turn around good. Funny how my heart was so full of gratitude this morning and then I began reading as other hearts poured out their gratitude for what they were thankful for and it started my day of f great.  I was doing my devotion this morning and thinking of how thankful I am to have such a great group of people to walk along side of in the Reliance ministry.  It is truly a blessing to know Godly people and to serve with them.  People that let the peace of God rule their hearts.  People that strive to do their best for God. So very thankful today that Christ died for our sins, not only to atone sin, but he also sent a comforter of peace to help rule our hearts so that we can be one body in him. 
And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also you are called in one body; and be you thankful.
Colossians  3:15


He is the binding that binds us, He is the hope that finds us....