Thankful Thursday

I'm thankful for:

~A brief respite from the summer heat earlier this week.

~ Sound sleep last night.

~ Lunch with friends today, one whom I haven't seen in a several years. I'm looking forward to the fellowship.

~ Discussion on Sunday's sermon in our small group  - how do we take up our cross and deny ourselves daily?  Not as a means of earning our salvation, but because we have been saved.

~ This quote from Thomas Chalmers:

We know of no other way by which to keep the love of the world out of our heart, than to keep in our hearts the love of God - and no other way by which to keep our hearts in the love of God, than building ourselves up on our most holy faith. That denial of the world which is not possible to him that dissents from the Gospel testimony, is possible even as all things are possible, to him that believeth. To try this without faith, is to work without the right tool of the right instrument. But faith worketh by love; and the way of expelling from the heart the love which transgresseth the law, is to admit into its receptacles the love which fulfilleth the law.