Thankful

Yesterday I had the chance to go take a free yoga class on the North Shore. They said the focus of the class was gratitude, and we were to hold an image in our mind for which we were grateful. I chose baptism, the Spirit-filled waters that are teeming throughout our faith, sanctifying us and claiming us as Christ's own. Over the Thanksgiving Holiday, when we think about what we are grateful for, we should begin at baptism, for that is the moment when we recognize how much God has given to us so that we might have a relationship with God.

Romans 6:1-11

6What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? ²By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? ³Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. ⁵For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. ⁶We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. ⁷For whoever has died is freed from sin. ⁸But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. ¹⁰The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. ¹¹So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

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Each sin of ours was washed away, cleansed by the blood of the lamb. Upon that cross, each one of our sins was nailed by the force of love, held up there by the gift of a Savior, and it was gift we hadn't even thought to ask for yet. We were claimed by love, and all we have to do in return is to be grateful for the gift, for the opportunity to live as a forgiven and renewed people. What is Thanksgiving? It is an opportunity to recognize the new creation that has taken place within us and to claim that as our true identity, to be windows to the cross and mirrors to God's unchanging and eternal love.

Thanks be to God!!