By Brandon Cox: God is quite creative. All you have to do is look up and around you and you’ll see a world filled with wonder, with color, in mesmerizing detail.

Often when people express themselves creatively, even when they aren’t producing specifically “Christian” art, they’re still glorifying God because they’re doing so as a reflection of his creative touch upon their lives.

The thing about art is that some of us just don’t “get” it. We wonder why someone would pay millions of dollars for a painting or spend countless hours listening to musical performances. Art isn’t very practical, after all.

In ancient Greece, there were two cities of global renown. Sparta was famous for their fighters and became the seat of the Greek military. Athens was the center of thought and artistic expression. Both were essential to the ongoing flourishing of the culture.

God wired us to be expressive. He designed us to employ our talents and abilities to show off his glory, sometimes with art and sometimes with engineering and innovation.

God wired us to be expressive. He designed us to employ our talents and abilities to show off his glory, sometimes with art and sometimes with engineering and innovation. Click To Tweet

Why is God so interested in worship, anyway? It doesn’t seem to feed the hungry or heal the sick. What’s the purpose of praise? The one hundredth psalm gives us a clue:

Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.
Worship the LORD with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
Know that the LORD is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
For the LORD is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.

~ Psalm 100:1-5 NIV

Shout… worship… sing… know… enter with thanksgiving and praise… these are all commands. And the why?

For the Lord is good and his love endures forever. His faithfulness continues.

We sing and shout and praise God simply on the basis of his worthiness. And when we do, we reach out and touch the heart of our Creator, and he responds by touching our hearts in return.

Praise is God-glorifying. And praise is life-changing. Let it overflow in your life right now. What do you have to praise him for today?

by Brandon Cox: I love the church. And I don’t love it nearly as much as Jesus loves the church. He’s the One who died for her.

We often evaluate the church today as an institution. We’ll talk about what’s wrong with the church, what’s right with the church, what’s changed about the church, and what we want when we look for a church to join.

But think about it. Jesus didn’t die to create an institution to be sized up according to our personal preferences. He died to start a family of people, united together by a common covenant and belief that his death and resurrection changed literally everything, forever.

The New Testament refers to the church as the “body of Christ.” He’s the Head. From him comes the church’s life and leadership. And the church is, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the active and present ministry of Christ to the world around us.

And the church Jesus started was a generosity movement. Luke described the early church this way:

All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.

~ Acts 2:44-45 NIV

This earliest generation of Christians had the unique privilege of having worshipped with Jesus personally. They’d stood before him. They’d received his words and his love individually and face-to-face. And they’d watched him embody the gospel entirely as he gave his life for them on the cross.

What he’d given, they couldn’t take for granted. Because he loved them, and because they loved him, they simply had to love each other. And that means that they had to take care of each other.

When you’ve been close to the Giver, generosity isn’t an option. It’s a way of life.

May this Spirit-filled, Bible-guided, Jesus-led, gospel-focused movement of generosity continue to grow and to flow until Jesus returns!

by Brandon Cox: Researchers agree with what has been written in scripture for two thousand years – gratitude is powerful! Expressing thanks actually releases endorphins in our brains that cause us to feel happiness.

One of the most valuable practices you can get into is the habit of expressing, out loud, thanks to God for at least three things that happened to you during the day. It changes the way you sleep and it prepares you for a better tomorrow.

Expressing, out loud, thanks to God for at least three things that happened to you durin the day changes the way you sleep and prepares you for a better tomorrow. Click To Tweet

And when you wake up in the morning, you get to thank God in advance for keeping every promise in his Word for your life. And of course, this changes the way you live through your day.

The funny thing about gratitude is that, while it’s one of the most powerful forces in the human heart, so few of us practice it regularly. We stay in negative, defensive mode, ready for something to go wrong and looking for something to complain about.

Luke told a story about Jesus that demonstrates how rare the gift of gratitude is…

Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.

One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.

Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”

– Luke 17:11-19 NIV

Jesus was probably making several points concerning the assumptions we make about others. In this case, he pointed out that the one who returned to give thanks happened to be a Samaritan, the object of scorn and racist anger among the Jews at the time. But all of that aside, as the old kids’ song says, only one came back.

You have within you today a rare and precious gift. It’s powerful in that it shapes your own heart and creates joy while also giving witness to others of the goodness of the God you serve. It’s the rare and valuable gift of gratitude.

And right now, you can show as much of it as you want.

by Brandon Cox: My nine-year-old asked me the other day, “If I ask Santa for a laptop, he’ll get me one, right?” To which I simply replied, “Probably not.”

Some of us view God as a sort of genie in the sky, ready to shower down gifts and presents on us whenever we ask, even if what we’re asking for isn’t for our good or God’s glory.

At the same time, just as many of us believe an opposite error – that God isn’t much of a giver and isn’t interested in answering our prayers for the things we need.

But here’s what the Bible says to those who believe in him…

Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm has already been lavished upon us as a love gift from our wonderful heavenly Father, the Father of our Lord Jesus-all because he sees us wrapped into Christ. This is why we celebrate him with all our hearts!

Ephesians 1:3 TPT

Let’s just break this down…

Every… Not just a handful of the things you’ll need, but every blessing you will need.

Spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm… It’s possible you didn’t even know you needed some invisible, spiritual, supernatural resources. But God knows your needs better than you do.

Has already been lavished upon us… It’s past tense. In Christ, you’ve already been given everything you need at your deepest level. And that word, lavished, is such a beautiful word. It’s been poured out upon you in great measure.

Because he sees us wrapped into Christ… God doesn’t give you good things because you’re good. He gives you heavenly things because you trust in his Son, Jesus, and therefore you’re wrapped up in him. You are robed, entirely by grace, with the very righteousness of Christ.

So everything that you really need, on a spiritual, supernatural level, has already been lavished upon you because God is a giver, because God loves his Son, and because God loves you.

When you need hope, you’ll find it in the heavenly realm, which is accessible by prayer. When you need peace, or joy, or purpose, or security, or anything else, it’s already available in the throneroom of God.

So, what do you need today?

by Brandon Cox: A. W. Tozer once said, “It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until he has hurt him deeply.” Tozer wrote those words in a previous generation of Christianity. He did not intend to imply that God wishes to cause pain in the lives of his children, rather, that God has determined to use the pain that will inevitably find us for our good.

And here’s the truth… Most people who have been used greatly by God have also been greatly wounded. They’ve walked through pain. They bear some scars and they’ve carried crosses.

God shapes us through pain. He cleanses us through it, as well. He sharpens our spiritual senses, detaches us from all that is temporary and fleeting, and gives us glimpses into the majesty of King Jesus when we hurt.

Paul said of his own experience,

Quite frankly, I don’t want to be bothered anymore by these disputes. I have far more important things to do—the serious living of this faith. I bear in my body scars from my service to Jesus.

Galatians 6:17 MSG

Pain puts life in perspective. Want to rise above pettiness? Walk through pain. Want to barely flinch in the face of little problems? Go through some big ones.

The truth is, you’ll never become all that God has in mind for you to become unless you walk through fire.

The big question is, do you want God’s very best blessings poured out into your life badly enough to walk through the fire?