“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We have been preserved, the many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown.
“But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.
“Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to God that made us! It behooves us, then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.” (April 30, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln, Proclamation for a National Day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer.)
All that we are, all that we have, all that we will ever be comes from the unsearchable riches of Christ. As President Lincoln said, we as a nation ought to be turning our attention to God.
We have so much to be thankful for. Psalms 100:1 – 5, 1Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth. 2 Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. 3Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his, we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. 4Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. 5For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.
As I watched Arkansas defeat the number one football team in the country, LSU, in triple overtime, I noticed some things: First, there were no empty seats up close. Everyone wanted to be close.
Secondly, whenever their team scored a touchdown the fans would jump and shout and give high-fives to one another. I see this also in baseball games. Now I’m not saying that when you come to church you need to give high-fives to one another or do cartwheels down the aisle.
But worship is a time of celebration and anticipation because all week long God has been scoring touchdowns and hitting homeruns in your life. Now it’s time to celebrate!
How wonderful it is to give thanks to our Lord. How wonderful it is to praise His wonderful name. How wonderful it is to recognize and remember all that He has done for us.
Today let’s do what Psalm 100:4 encourages us to: “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.”
I Bring You Good News of Great Joy
Luke 2:10-12, The angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. (11) Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. (12) This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."
The most amazing thing about the Christmas story is its relevance. It is not simply a lovely tale once told and then forgotten. Christmas is eternally contemporary.
It is as meaningful in our day as it was in that long-ago night when the shepherds listened in amazement as the angels proclaimed the birth of the Savior of the world.
We are amazed that the Son of God would leave the glories of heaven to become one of us. Philippians 2:6-7 words is this way: Jesus, being in very nature God…made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
The very ordinariness of that first Christmas speaks knowingly and persuasively to we common people.
Christmas came to little Bethlehem so that we would know that no place is unknown to God. It reminds us that there is no moment of the day or night when He is absent from us.
He came as a baby to remind us that all of life, from conception to the grave, is dear to Him. He was a child so that we could sense that all of life is in His hands. And He died for us to remind us there is nothing more precious to Him than our eternal souls.
At this Thanksgiving season we are thankful for the birth of Christ because Christmas is the one day of the year that carries real hope and promise for all humankind.
By Grace You Have Been Saved
Ephesians 2:4-5, But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, (5) made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved.
I don’t know about you, but I’m glad that God loves us. No, what I’m really glad about is that He loves me. You see, God is rich and powerful. Whatever He wants to do, He does. He is a great and powerful God. We sing praise choruses about His power.
This means that He doesn’t need me. He doesn’t need you. He doesn’t need my money, my talents, my work; He doesn’t need anything that you or I have. God doesn’t need anything because He is God; He is rich beyond all measure.
But listen, He is also rich in grace and mercy and love—His storehouse of mercy is overflowing. That’s what these verses are talking about. He is so rich He doesn’t need us, yet, because of His grace and mercy, He wants us.
Can you believe that? God wants us! He wants the very best for us. He wants us to belong to Him for all of eternity. He wants us to experience a rich and meaningful life. So God gave us His Son, Jesus Christ so that we can claim the very riches of heaven for our very own.
Do you know what this means to us as believers? It means that the greatest day of our lives will be when we meet our Savior God face to face. On that paramount Thanksgiving Day we will be able to thank Him personally for all He has done for us.
On that great Thanksgiving Day the whole family of God will lift their voices together to praise and bless His holy name. We will join the Psalmist in singing, “Give thanks to the Lord for He is good. His love endures forever.”
I Know My Sheep
John 10:14, 27-28, "I am the good shepherd; I know My sheep and My sheep know me . . . My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of My hand.”
We cannot help but be thankful for the daily presence and friendship of Jesus Christ. One of the most striking characteristics and moving qualities of Jesus’ life was His capacity for friendship.
His friends came from every racial, social, economic, and political frontier. He held in the embrace of His love the rich and the poor, the old and the young, the ins and the outs.
His love and presence continues with us today. Jesus is not just a historic person who lived 2000 years ago. He gives us the assurance that when we accept Him as Savior, He will save us from sin and wrong, and help us to live as God would have us to live.
His presence assures us of forgiveness when we fail, and strength to try again, and to do better. Jesus gives us guidance and counsel, truth and ideals in a world of fear and uncertainty, and of changing standards and ways of life.
He is a living presence in our daily lives. Because of Him there is a spirit and purpose in us that otherwise would not be there. He helps us with the choices of life to know right from wrong, and to choose the best out of the many things life offers.
Jesus gives us the privilege of working with Him in His kingdom and the joy of introducing others to Him and the happiness of His presence. Jesus gave me this church family to love and to love me back.
And, with all our shortcomings, we can still be of use to Him and to our world. His presence assures us of life eternal beyond the grave, and calls us to live with eternity in mind.
The presence of Jesus should cause us to be thankful for even the common things. Someone wrote in Christianity Today several years ago the following:
“Shall I thank God at this Thanksgiving? Why was I born at this particular time in the history of the world? Why was I born in a spotless delivery room in an American hospital instead of a steaming shelter in the dank jungle of the Amazon or a mud hut in Africa? Why did I have the privilege of going to school with capable instructors while millions around the world, without a school book, sit or squat on a dirt floor listening to a missionary? “How does it happen that my children are tucked into warm beds at night with clean white sheets while millions of babies in the world will lie in cold rooms, many in their own filth and vomit? Why can I sit down to a warm meal whenever I want to and eat too much when millions will know all of their lives the gnawing pangs of hunger? Do I deserve to share in such wealth? Why me and not other millions? “Why was I born in a land I didn’t build, in a prosperity that I didn’t create and enjoy a freedom that I didn’t establish? Why an American sitting comfortably in my own living room this Thanksgiving rather than an Indian squatting in the dark corner of some infested alley in Calcutta, shivering in the cold. “By what right do I have it?”
Thank God for this new day He’s given us. Did you thank God for this new day, or did you wake up complaining about the cold? Whether the sun is shining or rain is pouring, whether it’s warm or its cold, it’s all God’s gracious gift.
Thank Him for your health, and for the fact that you can be here today. Thank Him for your friends. Some of us don’t deserve friends, yet they put up with you and are there when you most need them.
Thank God for being blessed with this wonderful church. You can come and worship and praise God. Here you fellowship with other Christians, every time renewing those bonds of Christian love.
While you are thanking Him for His daily presence in your life, get rid of all pride and self-conceit. There is no such thing as a self-made person. What we have and are is only because of God’s grace in giving us intelligence, skills and gifts.
Don’t let the good fortune of others cause you to forget your bounty. Often those whose appearance seems to indicate that everything is going right are walking a road that few of us would care to walk.
“Pastor I hear you; but because of things going on in my life, it’s still difficult to be thankful to God. Please look at the hymn on page 638 of your hymnal.
Now Thank We All Our God was written around 1636 by pastor Martin Rinkart, right in the middle of the Thirty-years War. This was one of the worst wars in the history of mankind in terms of the sheer number of deaths—from the war, epidemics, and the economic results.
In a single year this godly pastor buried more than 5000 people in his parish—about 15 a day. He lived with the worse life could do. But look at the words; they were written as a thanksgiving grace for his children: Now thank we all our God With hearts and hands and voices, Who wondrous things has done, In whom his world rejoices,
Always focus on the Giver. How easy it is when our eyes turn away from God, to forget to be thankful. We have never with our eyes seen Jesus, nor with our ears heard His voice.
But we’ve sensed the warmth of His love; we’ve known His quiet inspiration; we have been strengthened by the intimacy of His presence.
When we consider our God, remember what He offers: forgiveness and peace, His Spirit and Grace; His joy and love. When we look at the cross of Jesus, all we can do is say, “Thank you Lord.”