Thankfulness: Volume One

"Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good;

for His steadfast love endures forever!"

Psalm 118:1

The Bible is continually telling us to "give thanks to the Lord" & what I've realized is that, not only does He deserve our praise & gratitude, but it certainly makes my perspective on life easier when I look for things to be thankful to God for. That being said, I'm going to keep a "thankfulness" list from now on...right here. I encourage you to keep a list somewhere that you can look upon & remember the grace & love of our Saviour...& to share in the praises & thanksgivings of others.

1. Thank You for Your indelible grace that covers my life & that it's not dependent upon me.
2. For covering me with Your love & showing me how precious I am.
3. For a wonderful, beautiful mother that I can look up to, who encourages me & supports me.
4. For healing my sister & establishing an unbreakable bond with her...I know that she will go on to do greater things than I ever could.
5. For a best friend who knows me inside & out...thirteen years together & counting.
6. For a church that seeks Your presence & acts as my extended family.
7. For the gift of music.
8. For all of the girl friends I have had the pleasure of getting to know through the years...they keep my life entertaining.
9. For providing for me even when things seem dry.
10. For my past that has taught me so much about myself & has given me experiences that can be used for Your glory.
11. For the privilege of an education & the continued thirst for knowledge.
12. That I get to work every week with the most amazing group of musicians & minister to Your heart with them.
13. For a really cute car.
14. For the two most adorable nieces a girl could ask for & a little nephew on the way...they bring joy to my life.
15. That I am able to live in a beautiful, green part of the world & that life really is far easier here than in many places on earth.
16. For cupcakes.
17. For a pastor who seeks after you & leads with authority & grace.
18. For a fantastic set of grandparents who have established a legacy & heritage for us.
19. That I can sit down & write when speaking fails me.
20. For my health & the promise that "By Your stripes we are healed".
21. For all of the people You've placed in my life, they continue to teach me & enrich my life.

Inspiring. Entertaining. Peculiar.

I am a quote keeper. I have a list of quotes in my phone that when put into Microsoft Word came out at a grand total of nine pages. I slimmed it down & these are my favorites. Enjoy.

"Jesus is the ‘I AM’ not the ‘I WAS’ or ‘I WILL’...He is your present help in time of need...TODAY!"- Pastor Judah

"The difference between cowards and champions is in what you do, not how you feel.” - Leon Fontaine

"The most unhappy people are the ones who always undervalue what they have & overvalue what others have." - Reverend Run

"Whatever our souls are made of, his & mine are the same." - Emily Brontë

"Grow old with me! The best is yet to be." - Robert Browning

"You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams" - Dr. Seuss

"Real love stories never have endings." - Richard Bach

"Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with." - Mark Twain

"The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials." - Chinese proverb

"I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind.
Some come from ahead and some from behind.
But I've bought a big bat. I'm all ready you see.
Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!"
- Dr. Seuss

"There are no shortcuts to any place worth going." - Helen Keller

"Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass...it's about learning how to dance in the rain." - Vivian Greene

"Our lives end the day we become silent about the things that matter. " MLK Jr.

"To love at all is to be vulnerable" - CS Lewis

“A Bible that’s falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn’t.” -Charles Spurgeon

"'I did' beats 'I will' any day." – Cyle

"Belong. Believe. Behave." - Judah Smith

"Our most basic emotional need is not to fall in love, but to be genuinely loved by another- to know that love grows out of reason & choice, not instinct. I need to be loved by someone who chooses to love me- who sees in me something worth loving." - Gary Chapman

"Don't let your issue become your identity." – Mike

“If you cannot find peace within yourself, you will never find it anywhere else.” —Marvin Gaye

"God responds to priests not politicians. Politicians pursue the heart of people, priests pursue the heart of God." - Zach Neese

"We can't measure something that's immeasurable." - Thomas Miller

"Gods joy and peace end where we stop them, when we take ourselves out of the equation. He is unending!" - Pastor Judah

“God’s raising up a generation that would rather carry a sword than a title.” -Damon Thompson

"You could get your heart broken or you could have the greatest love affair of your life, but you'll never know unless you try." - When in Rome

"The enemy will try to steal a gifting that's not yielded to the Holy Spirit." - Kari Jobe

"Hey! The moon followed me!" - my neice

"We're meant to lose people we love, how else would we know how important they are to us." - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

"Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality" - Warren G. Bennis

"Praise is an explosion of faith that allows you to run straight into the loving arms of Jesus." - Darlene Zschech

"I'm an early bird & I'm a night owl, so I'm wise & I have worms." - Michael Scott

"The right manner of growth is to grow less in one's own eyes." Thomas Watson

"First priority is God's presence before His plan. His plan is a byproduct of a life in His presence." - Elijah Waters

"Holiness isn't rules put ON a believer, it's the reality of God withIN a believer" - Elijah Waters

"Give your best today & I will better your best tomorrow" - God (Judah Smith)

"Favor is a result of grace which is a result of God's choosing you." - Judah Smith

"Respond to God, don't react to life." - Judah Smith

"Jesus was radical!! Anything short of being a radical believer can't be normal Christianity. Radical Christianity has become rational Christianity. Let's get disgruntled." - Pastor Bowles

"Sometimes to lose balance for love is part of living a balanced life." - Eat. Pray. Love.

"You don't need a man, Liz, you need a champion." - Eat. Pray. Love.

"The will of God won't take you where the grace of God can't keep you." - Pastor Stan

“We are all mortal until the first kiss and the second glass of wine.” - Eduardo Galeano

"Love, it will not betray, dismay, or enslave you—it will set you free to be more like the man you were made to be." - Mumford and Sons

"Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for." -Epicurus

"Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” - Howard Thurman

"Faith is not believing in my own unshakable belief. Faith is believing an unshakable God when everything in me trembles & quakes." - Beth Moore

"You can't lead people to worship unless you worship." - Tommy Walker

"God didn't send His Son to make bad people good, but to make dead people alive." - Leonard Ravenhill

"Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world." - Walt Disney

"God isn't looking for perfect vessels, He's looking for yielded vessels." - Catherine Kulhman

"Yeah! I went hunting once. Shot the deer in the leg...had to kill it with a shovel, it took about an hour. Why do you ask?" - Michael Scott

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act but a habit" -Aristotle

"Successful men do daily what unsuccessful men do occasionally." -Pastor Brent Sparks

"I don't dream at night, I dream all day; I dream for a living." -Steven Spielberg

"Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men." - Goethe

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

“They tricked us into reading a book by enticing us with promises of vulgarity.” - Cartman

“Feel the rhythm, feel the rhyme, get on up it's bobsled time!” - Cool Runnings

“I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.” - Marilyn Monroe

“I shall keep the silence of my heart with greater care, so that in the silence of my heart I hear His words of comfort, & from the fullness of my heart I comfort Jesus in the distressing disguise of the poor. For in the silence & purity of the heart God speaks.” - Mother Teresa

“My therapist told me the way to achieve true inner peace is to finish what I start. So far today, I have finished 2 bags of M&M's and a chocolate cake. I feel better already.” - Dave Barry

“The only way to get started is to stop talking and start doing!” - Walt Disney

‘No statue has ever been erected to a critic, but to the people they have criticized, many statues have gone up.” - Glenn W. Turner

“Think of it as an investment in personal expression.” - Piano Shop on the Left Bank

“One day, a person will come along who will make you realize why it never worked with anyone else.” - Cyle

'You'll regret the things you didn't do more than the ones you did.' - Cyle

“I don't know what it is with girls & vampires!” - Darren

“If you focus on what you've left behind, you'll never be able to see what lies ahead.” - Ratatouille

“You rap like Charles Barkley” - Tyler

“I just got this like eight years ago!!” - Tina Fey

"If love be rough with you, be rough with love; prick love for pricking, & you beat love down." - Romeo & Juliet

“Shelly, I'm like Ariel & you are my fish!!” - my neice

“The level of rock depends on the size of your guitar strap.” - Jordan

“An apple's the gateway to steak.” - Paul

“If we don't know where we're going we'll find a sign in anything.” - Abbey

“The goal is soul.” - Gretsch

“I long to accomplish a great and noble task; but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.” - Helen Keller

“If we will walk with God for a lifetime, we have to be willing to embrace mystery.” - Pastor John Stumbo

“I like your Christ, I do no like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” - Mohandas Gandhi

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” - Helen Keller

“Get out of the bitter barn & play in the hay!” - Phoebe

“Begin each day as if it were on purpose.” - Hitch

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” - Eleanor Roosevelt

“Whenever I'm about to do something, I think "would an idiot do that?" And if they would, I do not do that thing.” - Dwight Schrute

“You can observe a lot by watching.” - Yogi Berra

“If you always do what you've always done, you'll always have what you've always had.” - Cyle

"Love is begun by time & time qualifies the spark & fire of it" - Shakespeare

“I'm madly in love with you, and it's not because of your brains or personality.” - Little Miss Sunshine

“I was finishing dinner at a restaurant last night. The waitress asked, 'you want a box for that?' I said 'no, but I'll wrestle you for it’.” - John Mayer

Identity: Treasured Possession

When I meet new people I experience a lot of anxiety. It is not because I dislike meeting new people—people are one of the things I am most passionate about, but I fear that I make a bad first impression. A few weeks ago, I was preparing to attend an event where I would be meeting some important people. The anxiety I felt leading up to that point was overwhelming. I spent a lot of time in prayer prior to it, just to saturate myself in the Lord’s presence & finally I decided to pray over my insecurity of bad impressions. The Lord immediately spoke this to me very clearly, the way a Father would: “You are my delicately planned treasured possession—I did not make a mistake when I created you”. At this point I began to weep because I was reminded of how much my Daddy loves me & how proud He is of me even when I let my insecurities get in the way.

“Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine." Exodus 19:5

Over the past few weeks, I have been preparing music for a few upcoming weddings. One wedding is relatively soon & the couple has asked me to sing & play “My Beloved” by Kari Jobe at a point in the ceremony. The words in the song speak of the husband & wife romance between God & His people—something that should be mirrored in the relationship between husbands & wives on earth.

In the New Testament, Jesus tells two stories describing how much we are worth to Him—the first of a man who discovered a hidden treasure in a field, he went & sold everything he had to buy this land & make the treasure his own. The second is of a merchant in search of pearls, he comes to find one pearl that has “great value” & he sells all of his belongings to buy this pearl. (Matthew 13:44-46) To the man who bought the field, the treasure was so valuable that he protected it until he could make it his own. To the merchant, he found one pearl that caused all other pearls to fail in comparison & possessing that one pearl meant more than all of his securities in life.

Gary Chapman, author of The Five Love Languages, wrote: “Our most basic emotional need is not to fall in love, but to be genuinely loved by another—to know that love grows out of reason & choice, not instinct. I need to be loved by someone who chooses to love me—who sees in me something worth loving.”

God loves us in this way. He chooses to love us & His expression of that love was to send His Son to earth as a man to die a horrible death on a cross to redeem us & call us back to Him. He sees in us something of value—something to be treasured. He will go to any lengths to express His love for us, all we need to do is accept His grace & choose to love Him in return. We are His treasured possession.

Identity: Priests

* I was asked to write a short segment for the June edition of our monthly church bulletin. Coming up on June 22nd I will be teaching on praise & worship then we will have an extended evening of corporate praise & worship, so I was hoping to use the article as a preface for my sermon. As it turns out, I may have dug into something new entirely, & I am now planning to write a series of blog articles on our identity as defined by the Bible. They will hopefully be weekly installments released every Wednesday. I would like to invite you to follow along as I journey to discover the deeper meanings of our identities in Jesus Christ.

In our culture we seek to be identified by obscurities. We strive to be our own person & control who or what defines us, but the trouble is we have lost sight of our true identity by not wanting to be identifiable. Webster’s dictionary defines identity as: “sameness in all that constitutes the objective reality of a thing: oneness; distinguishing character or personality of an individual: individuality”. By this definition, it is safe to conclude that our identity not only speaks to our uniqueness, but also to our unity. For example, my name is Michelle Perdue & I am a Christian—the first of course speaking of my individuality & the second to my heritage & oneness as a follower of Christ. As devoted followers of Christ, it is important that we seek out how the Bible identifies us in order to effectively function in our identity in Christ & not lose sight of who we are.

“You yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. . . You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” 1 Peter 2:5,9

In the Old Testament, priests could only be male descendents of the house of Levi. We are now under a new covenant of Grace through Jesus Christ & all of us as Christians are called to be priests. I am a priest. You are a priest. Now that we have been identified as priests, it is important that we study out our “job description”. Our responsibilities as priests can be found in Deuteronomy 10:8: to carry the Ark of the Covenant, to minister to the Lord, & to bless the people in His name.

Our first duty is to carry the Ark of the Covenant—or to carry the presence of the Lord. We have the responsibility of carrying His presence with us, because our bodies are vessels (1 Corinthians 3:16) in which the Holy Spirit dwells—which means that we have the opportunity to allow people to encounter the presence of God every place we go. We are called to create “meeting places” between God & man. As we learn to identify with this, we should also consider how we interact with people as carriers of the Lord’s presence.

Our second duty is to minister to the Lord. Ministering to God means that we are here for His glory, His desires, His pleasure, His will, His entertainment, to serve & honor Him. It is not our role to be consumers of worship or to receive from worship, but to minister to God in worship. Our worship is full obedience & submission to God. The posture of our bodies should express & reflect the posture of our hearts toward God.

Our final duty as priests is to bless His people. A common Levitical blessing goes like this: “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face to shine upon you & be gracious to you; the Lord lift up His countenance upon you & give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26) The purpose of this blessing is not for the desires of the people; instead the purpose is to call out everything they need for their futures—preparing their destiny.

Let us make a commitment, today, to come together as a unified family & discover the ways that Jesus Christ identifies us & learn to function in our identity to bring glory to His Name & draw people toward our glorious, loving Saviour.