Good morning on this Saturday, September 17th. Tomorrow's Re-Church sermon will focus on the three things people want most out of life. Do you know what those three things are? They are consistently at the top of the list when people are surveyed about this topic. The three things are: love, happiness, and peace. Ironically, many people are surprised by the things which are not at the top of the list, i.e., wealth, position, popularity, possessions, etc. Those things usually appear further down the list, not at the top. One characteristic of people who count themselves happy or very happy in their lives is the presence of gratitude and appreciation. They do not allow themselves to take the good in their lives for granted; yet, that is exactly what others so easily allow themselves to do. Take a good look at your life and ask yourself, "do I constantly inventory my blessings and am I thankful for them?" It is so easy to "habituate" things in our lives. To habituate means that we become so accustomed or used to those things, we fail to be as grateful for them as we should be. In other words they become so routine, we fail to appreciate all the good things we have and ignore their true value. The Bible warns us about this happening and repeatedly admonishes us to give thanks, be grateful, have appreciation, and count our blessings. We should all constantly keep a gratitude journal in our minds, if not on paper. The song writer was right when he wrote, "Count your many blessings, name them one by one, count your blessings see what God has done." You won't want to miss this sermon tomorrow. Your happiness may depend on it.
Mel Brown