Live Free with Josh Howerton - Does Your Thankfulness Overflow? | Ep. 210 | Friday, November 24, 2023

Episode Date: November 24, 2023

Is there anything more contagious than joy? Living with a thankful heart not only changes us but spreads to others around us. May we be a people who spread the contagious gift of joy by living life counting all of our blessings. For more information, visit lakepointe.church/dailydrive

Thanks for tuning in to today's Daily Drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. For more digital content to feed your faith, visit lakepoint.comit. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Mike Bro, and so grateful that you tuned in today. And, man, I hope you had a great Thanksgiving day yesterday. While we gather with a bunch, I mean a bunch, like triple digits of family members and families of friends.

And we had a lot of food and a whole lot of fun. And I hope you slowed down yesterday and started counting all the ways God has blessed your life. I mean, just making that a regular daily practice really is attitude and life-changing. So let me just give you one last thing today as you are counting your blessings. start to share the joy. Count your blessings and share the joy. You ever notice how a negative, you know, Debbie Downer kind of person just sucks the life out of a room?

Negativity, cynicism, ingratitude is contagious. But so is joy, and so is gratitude, and so is laughter. My wife, Debbie, is one of the most contagiously joyful people you will ever meet. She giggles through life, and anybody that knows her will tell you the same thing. She changes the environment of any room. She makes our family fun. She makes anybody feel at home. Why? Because she's taking an HGTV course on how to make your own more inviting?

Nope. She's super outgoing and charismatic? Nope. Because she's grateful. Let me say it again. It's not joy that makes us grateful. It's gratitude that makes us joyful. My sons took a road trip up the coast of California to Monterey,

and they drove that 17-mile drive back down the Pacific Coast Highway, and they are avid golfers, so they took. text me a picture from the 18th green at Pebble Beach golf course with a text that says, Hey, Dad, we got to do this sometime, bucket list, which means, hey, dad, we need you to pay for this. You know, and I got a few things on my bucket list. I think it's great to pursue those things, but I'm telling you that the elusive, holy grail of joy, it's not found on a manicured green, it's not found on some exotic location or some adrenaline rush experience.

The only place we need to visit before we kick the bucket is the land of the land of gratitude and I'm discovering to find real paradise I got to run from the desert of ungratefulness and into the place of wonder and all that flows from the goodness of God and I'm so glad at the very top of my bucket list these days right next to following Jesus is living with a thankful heart you see as long as thanks as possible joy as possible because joy finds its roots in thanksgiving somebody who was going through chemo told me about a little rhyme that she learned as a kid She said, the rhyme said, as you go through life, make this your goal.

Look at the donut and not the whole. If you want to have a heart full of gratitude, the kind that's an all-inclusive kind of thankfulness, be grateful for the good, the bad, the ugly of our lives. You've got to focus on what you do have. Not on what you don't have. Keep your eye on the donut and share the joy. Like many of you, I've been praying for peace in the Middle East. Horrific stuff going on.

I got to go to Israel a few years ago over in the land where Jesus walked. There's a mountain called Mount Hermon. Snow melts from the peak, and the snow on the peak of Mount Herman flows down into a body of water called the Jordan River. You might have heard of that. The Jordan is a source of life for people. Has been for thousands of years.

Jesus was baptized, as many people were baptized in the Jordan River. The Jordan River flows south, and it flows into a body of water called the Sea of Galilee. It receives the freshwater, and it is teeming with life and fish, and it's clear people swim there, and then it empties back into the Jordan River again, which continues to flow south into a body of water called the Dead Sea. And it's not so beautiful. The Dead Sea receives fresh water from the north, all the ways from the snow-capped mountains of Mount Hermann.

The difference is there's no outlet. The Dead Sea doesn't give, it just takes. And as a consequence, nothing can really live in its bitter water. Two seas, fed by the same source. One gives and lives, the other hordes, and dies. And gang, if we only receive God, God's goodness and we never pour it back out, something inside of us dies. Our joy starts to die. You see, a life spent counting the blessings of God becomes a life spent giving away the blessings of God. God calls us to do thanks so that Thanksgiving might literally become thanks living. So what do you say we start counting and we start practicing gratitude and this week as we start sharing the joy and maybe like piglet, we will develop a

kind of heart that can hold a rather large amount of gratitude. Have a great day. Thanks for tuning in today. For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays at 6 p.m. and Sundays at 9.30 and 11 a.m. Central Standard Time. Also, if this podcast was helpful to you, would you be sure to rate, review, and share this podcast to help get the word out? For more, information about all digital ministries of Lake Point. Visit lakepoint.compt.combe. Church slash daily drive.