Long-Term Recovery: The Gratitude List

I used to have horrible mornings, and they would lead to incredibly horrible days. I would set my alarm clock for when I needed to wake up, but it was my daily pattern to hit snooze several times before getting out of bed. When I would finally get out of bed, I would be running late. That would lead to me throwing on clothes, leaving work with neither a prepared lunch nor breakfast. If I was lucky, I would grab a pop tart while I was headed out the door. If I didn’t have one of those, I would stop at McDonalds or just go without eating breakfast.

Generally, I had to go without because I didn’t have time to stop at a drive through and still be to work on time. I would speed through traffic, furious at the people in front of me going the speed limit because they had left themselves enough time to get to work early. How dare they not consider me and when I had to be to work! What were they thinking, following the speed limit? That thing is more of a suggestion, really! Then I would get to work hungry, mad about the inconsiderate drivers and stressed because I was almost late.

How many of you does this describe?

If you can relate to any of the above, I have a great idea for you. It is something that worked for me, and I believe it will work for you as well. It may seem too easy at first, but you will still find it hard to apply. It will involve developing a new pattern, which can be difficult. At least it was for me, at first. Now, I swear by it. Today, I can’t imagine starting my day any other way.

First step is to set your alarm clock for 30 minutes before you need to wake up. That is actually the easiest part. The hard part is getting up when your alarm clock goes off, without hitting snooze AT ALL! As soon as your alarm goes off, roll out of bed and head to the kitchen. Do not snooze, do not go back to bed go directly to the kitchen.

Once in the kitchen, I start coffee. On very rare occasions I will brew a cup of tea. I have a Keurig, so this is really easy. I have known some people who had a clock on their coffee makers who would set the coffee to begin brewing at the same time they set their alarm for in the bedroom. You don’t want it to be ready already, because you still have something to do.

Next I write out my gratitude list while the coffee brews. Then I relax and enjoy my coffee while I give thanks to my Higher Power for the things I am grateful for. I feel this is something that is sorely missing, especially in the  United States. Most people, when they pray, don’t do it to give thanks. The “Our Father Prayer” today would sound something like this, “Our Father, who art in heaven, give me give me give me give me. Amen.”

I choose to give thanks to God for all I have, and the things on my gratitude list give me several things to focus on for the morning. After spending 10-15 minutes doodling, meditating and praying I then get ready for work. By the time I get ready for work I am still ahead of schedule and have plenty of time to get to work. I don’t have to speed, I don’t have to get mad at the person in front of me “only” going the speed limit and when I get to work I am in a great mood and that leads to me having a great day way more often than I used to when I didn’t do a daily gratitude list.

 Enter the gratitude list. Some of you may be wondering what a gratitude list is, or may already be doing one and are just reading this to reaffirm what you are doing. I warn you, my gratitude list is a little different. It has morphed as I have done it through the years and become more than just words on a piece of paper that I threw into a box.

Generally, a gratitude list is simply a piece of paper you write on. You write anywhere from 3-10 things you are grateful for, trying to list different things every time you do it so that your list is not exactly the same, day in and day out. Many people do a gratitude list on a daily basis, generally in the morning to start their day off positive while others do it at the end of their day to help them compartmentalize and unwind. Most have a simple gratitude list that goes like this:

1.      Today I am grateful for my wife.

2.      Today I am grateful for clean drinking water.

3.      Today I am grateful for my car.

That would be great, if you were making a grocery list of things to pick up from the store. The gratitude list is extremely important, not just to start my day off on the right foot but at times to reread if I am feeling a little drained, moderately depressed or completely hopeless at some time over the course of the day. You need to embellish when making your gratitude list, a little or a lot. Own it and make it yours.

Your gratitude list should have genuine feelings so it can elicit a positive response either in the morning when you originally write it out or when you come back and look at it later. If you don’t add details and emotions, then the gratitude list is just one more obligatory thing to do you will check off your daily list. Don’t get me wrong, doing it that way is good. That said, I don’t want you to do good things and live a good life, I want you to do things great and live an amazing life. Supercharge your gratitude list! So how do I get more emotion into mine?

I have several techniques I like to use:

1.      Add details. Don’t just say you are grateful for something, list why you are grateful for it. Instead of saying “I am grateful for _________,” say why are grateful for that person. What do you love about that person? What do you love to do with that person? How does that person make your life better?   

2.      Scrapbook it. Add photographs, use words cut from a magazine, write in different colored inks, doodle.  Grateful for a movie or a band, glue a ticket stub on the page.

3.      Draw pictures. If you are grateful for something, draw a picture of it then write reasons you are grateful for it around the picture.

Bottom line; make your gratitude list yours! Use it to start your day off better and also as a constant reminder when life kicks your butt that you still have many things to be thankful and grateful for. I have used my gratitude list to drag me out of several funks before they got a chance to reach a full blown depressive episode.

I have a picture of one of my past pages, before I got a journal I  put them in, for you to look at. It is pretty obvious you don’t need to be an artist to do this. You don’t have to be a wordsmith. You need only be optimistic and honest about the things you are grateful to have in your life and wake up 30 minutes early to record them.  

This is something so simple yet so necessary that I don’t believe you can have an incredibly strong recovery without it. This is just one more of the reasons I can say that I will NEVER use again. Relapse does not scare me anymore. What scares me is not living life to its potential. If you are like me and constantly look for ways to improve the life you have, add a daily gratitude list. You need only record 3 things a day for 30 days and I guarantee you will have a better outlook on life than you had before you started doing it. 

Good Enough Ain't Good Enough Anymore

In my addiction, I usually did the wrong thing. On occasion, I would do the right thing. Sometimes it was because I still had some principals, other times it was so that I could bring it up later to explain why I was not as bad as other people. Quite a lot of the time, it was by blind luck. Even a broken watch is right twice a day (unless it’s digital, in which case it is never right because you can’t see it or if it displays military time in which case it would be right once a day). Needless to say, the life that I was living in my addiction was good enough. What I was doing I felt was good enough to keep doing until it wasn’t, which took about 17 years. Then another 7.

I decided to get sober. Not really for me, but because I got caught by my probation officer and she sent me to rehab instead of back to prison. I was not doing it for me, I did it to stay out of prison which I had not enjoyed enough to want to go back on a 10 year backup. Also, I did it to show other people that I was not who they thought I was. I thought my reasoning was good enough, but my sobriety only lasted a couple of months before I relapsed.

When I tried to get sober a year later, I never really pushed myself. Instead, I would just do enough to get by. At faking it, I was awesome. I overachieved at the goals others set for me but never really had any goals for myself. Even when I did the 90 meetings in 90 days that was more like 150 meetings in 90 days, I never really listened while I was there. I was too busy telling people all that I knew about sobriety, which at 2 months sober could have fit inside of a thimble. I would also join in on the war stories, which a lot of other people there liked to listen to. But I thought that what I was doing was good enough, until it no longer helped.

I had a counselor who told me not to do drugs and that alcohol was a drug, so I followed in his footsteps and was sober. I actually looked up to him and respected him. Then one day he came into the restaurant I worked at and sat at the bar. While he was at the bar he had several alcoholic drinks. He obviously thought that no one could see him, or that he didn’t have a drinking problem. I am not sure which it was because I never saw him again. For him, what he was doing was good enough. I went out that night and got drunk. If he could do it so could I. Was he the reason I drank? No, but he was the reason I used. It was good enough.

Then I quit drugs which were illegal and became an alcoholic because alcohol was legal. I could rationalize my drinking all day long. Even though I would black out most every night I still worked and went to college. I even graduated honors. I was an alcoholic that drank and drove multiple times EVERY NIGHT. I would wake up with no idea how I got home. I would wake up with shakes and drink to make them go away. Was I happy? No, I was miserable but I was good enough.

Then I decided I wanted more. I wanted more for my life, my son’s life, my relationships, my employment, my day to day life. I was no longer happy with what I had. It was not enough. Good was not enough. I wanted to attain greatness. I went full bore in everything that I did. I decided to never settle for anything less than amazing for myself, my faith, my recovery, my wife and my children. Good was simply not good enough anymore. I wanted great!

I found that if I wanted to change, there were things I had to realize if I wanted to live a better life:

1.       Complacency kills I wanted to be great, and in order to do that I had to never ever settle. If I meet my goals, I create new ones. I was not born to do good things; I was born to achieve greatness!

2.       Keep moving If you are not moving forward, you are moving backward. Life is a journey not a destination.

3.       Educate Yourself Learn, learn and then learn some more. Read, have discourse with intelligent and/or wise people. To die ignorant is the greatest sin we can commit against ourselves.

4.       Ask Questions That is the only way you can find out some things, so don’t be afraid to ask. The only stupid question is the one that isn’t asked.

5.       Be Altruistic It really is better to give than to receive. Do for others, then do some more. There is nothing that makes me feel better than knowing I am necessary.

6.       Speak Loud When it comes to your testimony, shout it from the rooftops. After all, you are the expert at your life and there is a lot of hope and strength that people can get from it.

7.       Shame Sucks Never be ashamed of who you are and what you have done. After all, they made you the person you are today and that person is awesome!

8.       Be Proud of Your SuccessesDefeats build us and our victories define us. Take pride in what you have accomplished. Toot your own horn, because other people might not. People need to hear about both your wins and your losses to know who you are and what you are about. Take pride in the positive things you do.

9.       Be Grateful Learning the difference between wants and needs was vital to my finding happiness and a better life. There are things that I want and things that I need. If I focus on my wants I lose my ability to focus on that which is important. Start your day with a gratitude list and focus on what you have instead of what you don’t. It makes my mornings start off well, which bleeds into the rest of my days.

10.   Never Surrender I was beaten so many times before I even tried because I listened to the voice that told me I could not do it. I stopped listening to that voice and accepted I had no limitations as long as I was not dead. That is when the game is over. If you are still breathing, than victory can still be yours!

11.   Get the 5 Pillars The 5 Pillars are: A team to play for (Jesus), a coach (sponsor/mentor), teammates (accountability partners), a game plan (The Bible [for Cliff Notes use the book of James]/12 Steps) and practice (small groups, church, support meetings).

12.   Put God First My life is no longer about me. I put God first and every thing else comes second. If I put God first it makes all other areas of my life better. I become a better husband, father, friend, employee, etc. It all starts with God and trickles down from there. After all, I was an addict for decades and tried every way you can imagine to quit using and failed. An atheist said a fox hole prayer 5 years ago and I have not used since. And I am WAAAYYYYYY happier!

The Power of a Word

It is amazing how much power can result from changing one word. I have done this with the word HAVE, changing it to GET. That one change has transformed my life because it has completely changed my attitude about things. It is amazing the different way I have been able to look at most things that I go through in my life because of it. I no longer see things as obstacles but instead as opportunities. Here is how it is applied.

I used to hate going to recovery meetings. I would be fine once I got there, but the motivation to get there in the first place was missing. I would look at the clock and think to myself, “I have to go to a meeting tonight.” It was very low on my totem pole of things to do, even though I realized how important they were to my sobriety.

As I began to get more involved with the meetings, I opened myself up to doing more at them. I would chair meetings, volunteer to do readings and set up/break down chairs and tables for the meetings. I became necessary to the meetings and began to see them not as things I HAD to do, but things I GOT to do.  Soon I would see it was almost time for the meeting, and would say to myself, “I get to go to a meeting.”

Thinking of the meeting as something I got to do instead of something I had to do changed the way I looked at it. I began to appreciate the meetings I attended. I could have been in county jail or prison due to my use, but I had some freedom. I could have been in the hospital or the graveyard due to an overdose or drug deal gone bad and yet I was healthy enough to be outside. I got to be at a meeting. Being there was way better than some of the alternatives I could think of, so why not focus on the positive aspects?  

I now use that shift in vocabulary with everything I do. I don’t have to go to work; I get to go to work. I don’t have to go to trainings; I get to go to trainings. I don’t have to wake up in the morning; I get to wake up in the morning. I know the direction my life was headed in my addiction. My life’s trajectory has done a complete 180 thanks to Christ and recovery. How can I not appreciate what I get to do?

If you are always miserable, then you are working your program wrong! Will you have days that are disappointing? Of course you will. It is your choice whether you let the disappointments or the successes define you and the rest of your days. I chose to put the majority of my focus on my successes. I introduce myself not as an addict, but as one in recovery because of that. I am defined by my success, not by my shortcomings!

So the next time you are having a pity party for yourself, remember that there are much worse things that could be happening in your life. The next time you are at a meeting filled with people holding Negative Nancy and Debbie Downer attitudes, shout the praises of your recovery. Remind everyone that recovery is filled with joy and hope. There is a better life in recovery! After all, that is the message newcomers needs to hear, and a lot of people in our lives need to be reminded of.

BLiR VLog 08/19/2012 - 08/25/2012

08/21 Attitude of Gratitude and Staying Eternally Optimistic

08/22 Why I Don't Like the Word Recovered

08/23 What Do They Mean When They Say, "Turn it Over to God"

08/24 Anger and the Power of Prayer

08/25 Dealing with Racing Thoughts

Are You Grateful for Your Addiction? or Why I'm Glad To Be A Pickle

Have you ever wondered, "When will I feel or be the person that I used to be?" It could be because you struggle with addiction, you lived through a natural disaster, you were abused as a child or you lost a child. You want to get over it, to forget it and to move on. You want to forget that it happened so that your life can return to normal. I often have clients that I work with ask me the same question, "When do I get to be the person that I was before this happened?"

The short answer is, NEVER! Before you shut me out, hear me out. I was abused as a child, my parents separated and I blamed myself, other family members were abused and I blamed myself, I went to prison, I dealt drugs, I attempted suicide, I was involved in manufacturing methamphetamine and I was addicted to drugs and alcohol. There is nothing that I can ever do to change what I did in the past. No time machine to hop in and undo what I had already done.

Along the way I found that no amount of anger, anxiety, self-loathing, denial, depression, bargaining or escape will change my past. I wasted a lot of energy on that in my past, and yet everything that I had done remained done. I never was able to change the choices I made in my past. I beat myself up for years about it. I hated myself! Every time that I looked into a mirror I saw a convict, a junkie, and a dope cook. I was miserable, and I saw no way of ever escaping my past. I had not shot up in a decade and I still thought about it sometimes, and I still judged myself for doing it.

Then I heard an example that changed my life. I will share it with you know, and in the way that I now share it with others. We are all born cucumbers. That is not a bad thing, there is nothing wrong with a cucumber. It may be a little bland and tasteless. I cannot eat a cucumber all by itself. I generally need to dip it in ranch, or eat it with other things in a salad. As a cucumber, it is okay.

Know, take that cucumber and add some spices and vinegar and let it soak all that up and simmer in it. You know have a delicious pickle. That bland, ordinary cucumber has been transformed into something awesome! Just as we as humans are transformed by the things we experience and overcome in our lives. We have to soak in all of the negative things that happen to us, whether they are done by others or by our choice, and then use those to change us.

Before my addiction I was a cucumber, now I am a pickle. I have more flavor, so to speak. Thanks to my addictions, mental illnesses and abuse I have gained strength and wisdom that can only be gained through overcoming! Without my past, I am just like everybody else. I am normal. That is not a bad thing, the world needs normal people. That said, the world also needs pickles. Who better to help someone overcome an addiction than a former addict?

I do my job as well as I do for two reasons. One reason is that I have gone through extensive training in college and continuing education training. I have read countless books and listened to multiple experts in the field talk. The second reason is that I also have lived as an addict and by the Grace of God overcame my addictions. That gives me empathy that many do not have. It has allowed me to stay positive and hopeful when working with clients and friends who are struggling with life controlling issues.

In Celebrate Recovery we call them hurts, habits and hang-ups. We do that because it does not just have to be addiction. In fact, it seldom is only addiction! I was abused as a child, grew up in a split home, my father was an alcoholic, I have been diagnosed with Bi-Polar Disorder as well as many other mental health diagnosis, I felt like I never fit in as a kid, attempted suicide, my father committed suicide, I have seen multiple people die, etc. Recovery is working through all of those issues and finding that a better life exists.

Without my past, those who I help would not listen nearly as much. They would not find the hope that they do, if they could not relate to me. Research shows that the therapeutic alliance is the single most important indicator of success! I can build that alliance because I am a pickle. Someone in the pickling process can talk to me or hear my story and know that they too can eventually step out of their addiction.  As pickles we can impart hope to those who are still struggling that one day they too can be a pickle!

Now, if you wanted to take that pickle and turn it back into a cucumber could you do it? Of course not, once a cucumber is pickled it can never be unpickled! It has now underdone a permanent change and become something totally different. That said, why would it ever want to be a cucumber again? Now that I have some flavor (experience, wisdom and strength), why would I want to give that up?

When I think of people who save other's lives, there is a list that comes to my mind. I think of fire fighters, nurses, doctors, paramedics and addicts in recovery. All of those people have had to go through specialized training in order to save others. Some people go to college, or an academy to learn how to save lives. We lived life, and then either through the 12 steps or Christ (or both) we have overcame our issues and now we are willing to share our strength, experience and hope with others.

Since I have began to use my past to empower others, I have come to peace with my past. I went from dealing dope to dealing hope and I would never change what I do today. I not only get to talk to addicts, I also have the privilege of talking to pastors, chaplains, missionaries, college students, professors, substance abuse counselors, probation officers and the families and parents of addicts.

PRAYER Pt. 1: Definition of Prayer

I guess that the best way to start off a series on prayer would be to define prayer. After all, it is hard to talk about something if we do not have a good idea what exactly we are talking about. So, what is prayer? Here are the definitions found on dictionary.com:

1. a devout petition to God or an object of worship.
2. a spiritual communion with God or an object of worship, as in supplication, thanksgiving, adoration,  or confession.
3. the act or practice of praying to God or an object of worship.
4. a formula or sequence of words used in or appointed for praying: the Lord's Prayer.
5. prayers, a religious observance, either public or private, consisting wholly or mainly of prayer.

Over the course of this series we are going to talk about the Christian concept of prayer. So we can rule out object of worship. Based on several scriptures we can also rule out formula or sequence of words. Honestly these definitions work, but not well. To learn about the concept of prayer to God, we should see what He says about it in His Living Word. So, what does the Bible say about prayer?

1 John 5:14-15 says, "This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us - whatever we ask - we know that we have what we asked of Him."

1 Thessalonians 5:17 says, "Pray continually."

John 16:23, "In that day you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name."

We have made prayer much more complicated yet easier than it needs to be. I know that I suffer from this. I have no problem praying on my own, but get really nervous when I am praying outloud in the midst of others. I get nervous when I pray over food if the table has people I do not know at it. It is even more nerve-wracking for me when I am doing intercessory prayer (praying on behalf of someone else) in a group or I am praying with someone else out loud.

Prayer should not be this way. Prayer is not that difficult a thing to do, but in order to do it it must be understood. I fear things that I do not know or understand well. Math and spiders are the two examples I have. One of them I do not understand well, and the other I have never had any reason to learn about. Therefore I am intimidated and scared by them. I no longer want to be intimidated by prayer. 


This series is an opportunity for me to learn more about what prayer is and share that knowledge with you. It is me realizing that not only do I not know enough about prayer, but that I am pretty sure I do not pray often enough and need to pray more. But in order to pray, I should understand what prayer is. So what is my definition of prayer?

Prayers are frequent conversations of meaning and purpose with our Heavenly Father in the name of His Son Jesus Christ that are sincere and filled with an attitude of gratitude, reverence, love, faith, humility and thanksgiving which allows us to let our needs be known while deepening our relationship with God.

The bottom line is this: Prayer IS an ongoing  conversation with God. Plain and simple, prayer is talking to God. Imagine having God on speed dial, "Siri, call Jehovah." Instantly, I have God on the other end and I can have a conversation with him where I pour my heart out. Just like your best friend, you should want to talk to God over the course of the day and share your life with Him. Prayer is showing that you are dependent on God. You are confiding in God, building your relationship and letting Him know that you need Him. Not praying is trying to live independent of God, telling Him that you don't want Him and you don't need Him.

Why I am GRATEFUL for my addiction

GRATITUDE! It is really easy to be grateful for the good times. The bad times we have trouble being grateful for. We often see quarterbacks thank God after a touchdown and boxers after a victory. We do not see them showing gratitude after the interception they throw or the knockout they suffer. I hope they give thanks and express gratitude in private. If they do not, they should be! I dare each and every one of you to "Tebow" when you have setbacks and thank God!

How idiotic does that sound to you? I know that this is a hard concept for a lot of us to grasp, being grateful for our shortcomings, traumas and miscues. Why should we grateful? Thanking God for our loses and hurts sounds insane to us, but it should not be.

Most athletes interviewed years after huge losses share that it was the loss that led them to work that much harder to become better and insure that it would not happen again. Strategists learn just as much from their defeats as their victories, probably more. We learn from the valleys, not the peaks!

 Ultimately there are multiple reasons to be grateful for the pain and mistakes of and from our past. Hopefully you remember the saying, "Those who do not know their past are doomed to repeat it." It means that we should learn from our mistakes and prepare ourselves so that they do not reoccur. I have been through multiple experiences in the past where I was hurt by others, I hurt others, or I hurt myself. The beautiful thing is that I can use those experiences to teach me how not to hurt or be hurt in the future.

Being hurt by myself /others and hurting myself/others has taught me how to deal with the hurt. I know what it feels like to hurt and therefore I can cope with it better than most. Mike Tyson had a saying that I really like, "Everybody has a plan until they're getting punched in the face." That is why in sparring people get hit hundreds of times in the face and body, because that teaches them how to take the hits and still think coherently and continue performing. Due to the trauma in my past, I can go through hell and keep functioning well.

I also have the ability to help others going through extreme situations that most do not have. I can help others and be more genuine and empathetic with them because I too have been through similar situations. Not saying that you have to go through hard times to help others through them, but it doesn't hurt. In fact it only helps. Having that first-hand knowledge helps me be more effective in helping others.

Finally, I think that all of the situations I have been through make me much more appreciative of my relationship with Christ and of my recovery. As an Agnostic and an addict I knew what it was like to live through hell. I knew how it felt to be rudderless and hopeless when crisis occurred. Life had me beat!

In Christ and recovery I know what it is to live through hell, because bad things still happen. The difference is that now I have direction and hope. I am eternally optimistic! I have an attitude of gratitude because I always know that it could be worse, I have already been there. Bottom line, even when I lose I win.

So when you hear someone say that they are grateful for their addiction, or their depression, or the abuse they suffered as a child hopefully you will not think them crazy. Instead you will know that they are not saying they are HAPPY that it happened, but instead they are saying that they are STRONGER and WISER because of it. They are saying they would not be the person they are today without it..........and they love who they are today!

Could Jesus Find a Disciple part 3 Following Christ in the Modern Era (Loving God)

Matthew 22: 37-40 states that when Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, he said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”


Today we are going to look at what it means to love God as we are commanded to. Tomorrow we will look at what it means to love your neighbor as yourself. These are two hard to explain and even harder to complete concepts, if we make them that way. They are actually pretty simple to break down if we use the Bible as a guide (which is what we will do today and tomorrow). Furthermore, they are not as difficult to accomplish as we would believe. Instead, they are only as difficult to accomplish as we make them.  

What does it mean to love God with all that you have and all that you are? Let us first look at what love does not look like. Phillip Yancey in his book What's so Amazing About Grace uses a newlywed to explain our relationship with God, and it is one of the most powerful and easy to understand examples that I know of.

Imagine a groom talking to his new bride the night of their wedding, "Honey, I love you so much. You mean the world to me and are of the upmost importance to me. But, I have a couple of questions for you. Now that we are married, how far can I go with other women? Can I sleep with them? Kiss them? How about flirt with them, or just stare at them as they walk by? What if I spend the week with other women, as long as I am with you on the weekends? You don't mind a few affairs now and then, do you? I know that it might hurt you, but just think of all the opportunities you'll have to forgive me after I betray you!"

Do you think the groom that just spoke has the slightest concept of what love is? Of course not, yet many of us as soon as we get into a relationship with God begin looking for loopholes. We begin to wonder just what we can get away with. We ask ourselves how little we can get by with doing. Or we tell ourselves that since God's grace is so all-encompassing, we can just go on sinning and it is not a big deal. All of that is what love is not.

A true relationship, on the other hand, is completely different. You do not do things not out of fear of getting caught, but because you feel remorse as soon as you do them (or even think about doing them). The question you ask yourself is not, "What will make me the happiest and please me," but is instead, "What can I do that will make God happy and please Him?" When how you live your life is an expression of how much you love someone, that is a strong relationship. When you please them not because you feel that you "have" to, but because you want to is the type of love we are talking about here. The reason I do not cheat on my wife is not because I am afraid that she might find out. The reason that I do not cheat on my wife is because I love her and I cannot imagine hurting or betraying her in any way!

God has gone above and beyond loving us. God has blessed us with grace, and that grace is something that we should be grateful and appreciative of. I can act however I want now that I have been reborn, because how I want to behave is to please Christ. I am unworthy of the forgiveness and grace that I have been offered. I was a filthy vessel, yet the Holy Spirit filled me. I can never say thank you enough!

I can, however, show that I do not appreciate what I have been given. I show my appreciation through expressing my love for God.  Not living my life to please God, or finding excuses to do what I know is wrong is how I show I don't appreciate God's grace. If I do not act as if I appreciate God's grace it is a good guess that I am not in relationship with Him. Love on the other hand is expressed by gratitude, and my attitude of gratitude is shown by how I live my life.

My life is lived well when I know that I need God. Only when I can admit my flaws and ask forgiveness for my sins can I receive grace. Grace is a gift, and you cannot obtain a gift that you do not receive. I cannot be forgiven if I feel I have nothing to forgive. I will continue to sin, and denial of that will result in my not receiving grace. That said, intentional sin is not how we follow the way Christ expressed we should live. You do not cheat on your wife to show how much you love her. When you do make mistakes in relationship, you should let the person you are in relationship know. They cannot forgive what is not brought to them.

God always has His arms extended, but sometimes we choose to turn away. We choose to not show our love for God. God's love gives us grace, but our loving God is how we receive grace. The only way that we can receive grace is through repentance of our sins! Loving God with your whole heart, soul and mind is what inspires us to repent of our sins and to live our lives better.

The Bible tells us what love is in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."

Love never fails is one of the strongest statements in the Bible. It is also the end result of our following what Jesus told us to do. WE WILL NOT FAIL!!! Today we examined how to show God we love Him, and tomorrow we will discuss how to love your fellow man in the blog entitled: Could Jesus Find a Disciple part 4 Following Christ in the Modern Era