THE POWER OF THANKFULNESS AND VICE VERSA By James M. Becher

We are soon to celebrate once again the National Holiday known as "Thanksgiving. “We do this every year. Every year we gather together with friends and family for a feast of plenty and, hopefully pause to give thanks for all our bountiful blessings. But thanksgiving should not be relegated to only one day a year. In Psalm 107, it says over and over again, "Oh that men would give praise the Lord for His goodness…" We should be thankful every day for the blessings God has given us. By giving thanks, we acknowledge God as a power greater than ourselves. We can see the handiwork of the creator around us in many ways every day. As Paul puts it in Romans 1:20 "the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by things that are made…" And yet, some of us fail to acknowledge Him. If all we were left to was our own selves and our own abilities, we would be quite limited indeed. Human beings are finite and limited, but God is infinite and unlimited. He has endowed all of us with special talents and abilities, but we must admit that these are from Him, and that they, although wonderful, are limited. The only being with unlimited power and resources is God. By being thankful, we acknowledge His sovereign control over our lives and His power to change situations and give us more power and ability. To be unthankful to Him is limit our own potential even further than it already is, while to be thankful can cause an expansion of our abilities. To fail to be thankful to God is to be asked to be left to be on our own--to be forced to depend on our own limited abilities and resources. In the moral realm, this spells absolute disaster. Lack of thankfulness is actually what has caused many of the problems we face today. This is what Paul was talking about in the first chapter of Romans in the Bible. He says "Because when they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God, nor gave thanks to Him…Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts…for the degrading of their bodies with one another…." I challenge you to read this entire portion in your Bible, and you will see that the spread of sin and degradation in the world is a direct result of unthankfulness toward God. Unthankfulness toward God led to the degradation of man, who was made in God's image. Think about it. An unthankful person opens himself up to all sorts of passions and desires, no matter how perverse. Unthankfulness removes the restraining hand of God over us and leaves us to our own witched and perverse bents. Thus, an unthankful attitude is the first step on a dangerous downward spiral. This is true both individually and nationally. The trouble is that none of us naturally wants to acknowledge a higher power than ourselves, because then we must yield to that power. But what we fail to realize is that yielding to God is the only true freedom. And when we acknowledge Him and begin to be thankful to Him for His many blessings, He will start to bless us more and to show us, if we do not yet know, what is the true way of eternal salvation which He has provided for us. It's no secret, really, and involves another act of thankfulness on our part, that of thankfully accepting the gift which God has provided for us (see Romans 6:23.) (see also the last stanza of POEM2.) If you need further clarification or explanation on this, write to me at inspirationalsuccesstips@yahoo.com with "salvation" in the subject. On the positive side, as my guest articles will show, the more we are thankful for the blessings we have, the more blessings we will receive. Paul tells us in Philippians 4:6 that our prayers should be "with thanksgiving." If we have a problem, we should trust in the promises of God and praise Him for the answer to come. As you can see in the history of thanksgiving section, the first Thanksgiving Day happened as a result of the Pilgrims' thankfulness for a bountiful harvest. But they had just passed through a very hard winter. The cold, snow and sleet were exceptionally heavy, interfering with the workers as they tried to construct their settlement. Yet, being people of faith, they did not loose heart, but gave thanks to God even then for the chance they had to begin a new life in the new world. And God honored their faith and thankfulness with a bountiful harvest, which gave them more reason for thankfulness. And God continued to bless them. Our country was founded upon faith in God. And this is the reason for this holiday we call "Thanksgiving." But we are moving dangerously away from our foundation. It's high time we took this day not just as an excuse to get together with family and friends and stuff ourselves, but as a reminder of the attitude of thankfulness which should be ours every day of the year.

Excerpt from Formula for Dynamic Living By James M. Becher

Let’s suppose for a moment that we all believe in God. If we believe that He made us, then He best understands how we function. And is it not reasonable that he would have left us some sort of instructions for this thing called life? Well, He did. It's called the Bible. When you buy a VCR, say or a stereo, it usually comes with a manual. But how often do we, in our haste to enjoy the product, try to set it up and run it without checking the manual? We think it seems so simple. Just plug this here and push that button. And then we wonder why it doesn’t work. Well, it's time to check the manual. It’s the same with life. If your life is messed up, perhaps its time to check the manual.
FORMULA FOR DYNAMIC LIVING :
DL=(GGE+GPS)xPSI
dynamic living =
God Given Equipment [potential]
+God's Principles of Success
X Proper Self Image.
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FOR MORE ON GOD'S SUCCESS PRINCIPLES AND WHY I PUBLISH THIS EZINE, CLICK ON THE TITLE OF THIS ARTICLE.
AND CHECK OUT MY LENSE ON FAITH FOR DAILY LIVING.CLICK HERE
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QUOTES :

1)"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious
triumphs, even though checked by failure, than to rank with those
poor spirits who neither enjoy
nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows
neither victory nor defeat.
-- Theodore Roosevelt 1855

2)"If we might have a second chance to live the day's once more,
and rectify mistakes we've made to even up the score. If we might
have a second chance to use the knowledge gained, perhaps we
might become at last as fine as God ordained.
But though we can't retrace our steps, however stands the score,
tomorrow brings another chance for us to try once more. "
---Unknown

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POETRY CORNER:A Winner’s Creed (author unknown)

If you think you are beaten you are;
If you think you dare not, you don’t;
If you’d like to win, but think you can’t
it’s almost a cinch you won’t.
If you think you’ll lose you’re lost;
For out in the world we find success begins
with a person’s faith;
it’s all in the state of mind.
Life’s battles don’t always go
to the stronger or faster hand;
They go to the one who trusts in God
and always thinks “I CAN”

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TOPICS COVERED BY different ISSSUES

HERE ARE TOPICS COVERED BY THE DIFFERENT ISSUES OF "INSPIRATIONAL SUCCESS TIPS":

1)Inspiration & Success 2)Dynamic Living
3)Love and self image 4)Purpose
5)The Law of Use 6)Vision
7)What about Goals?
8)Forgetting the past 9)Conquering fear
10)Do it NOW 11)Time management 12)Belief
13)Attitude 14)Self image review 15)Focus
16)Enthusiasm 17)Self controll & discipline
18)life's Seasons & sowing & reaping
19) What you need 20) Slow down
The cycle repeats, but issues are constantly updted & improved and new issues are added occasionally. There are also special Holiday issues. (For subscribe instructions, keep paging down)

SAMPLE OF THE FORMAT

Welcome & review of mission statement
In This issue (index)
Top Sponsor Ads
PROVERBS OF THE WEEKS
POEM1:
Short Article or by or word from the publisher
POEM2:
Swapped Ads1:
Guest Article1:
POEM3:
(etc. for as many Guest Articles, poems & ads I have in the issue)
QUOTES OF THE WEEKS
A touch of thoughtful humor

This is pretty much the format you can expect in any issue of the ezine.
Each issue covers a different topic. (See topic list) (Subscribe instructions are below:)

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I'll try deleting you and adding you again which will send another validation email