All tagged thanksgiving
Today we are celebrating Thanksgiving Day in the United States, and we do so as families, a country, and a people of God. As we thank Him for His many blessings we are reminded of the first Thanksgiving celebration in 1621 when the pilgrims of Plymouth gave thanks to the Lord for their year of survival, and His merciful provision.
The journey through the devotional messages of E.M. Bounds that I took several years ago taught me much about developing a full and holy prayer life, and the results of such a life that naturally concludes in God answering us. I learned how the aroma of that blessing, that gracious response, is a sense of gratitude which should be expressed in thanksgiving as we continue on in our prayers. Bounds conveyed this revelation with these words: "thanksgiving is the expression of an inward, conscious gratitude to God for mercies received." He goes on to say that "Gratitude is an inward emotion of the soul, involuntarily arising therein." Don’t we find this true in our lives?
Our study this morning is on the subject or Gratitude and Thanksgiving in our prayers, and today’s scripture verse comes from the account of Jesus healing the ten lepers. All were healed but only one came back to thank Him.
Today we give thanks to our Lord for every manner of blessing from forgiveness and salvation to His comfort, peace, and provision. We are diverse in our relationship with Abba our Father; some walk closely with Him and find it easy to pray and thank him without ceasing. Others know Him, but not well enough to know how to thank Him properly. While there are those who believe that He is angry with them and that they are unworthy, and will not utter a word. Finally, there are the lost who don’t yet know God, and Jesus at all. Wherever we find ourselves in the gambit of belief and faith today this is the best day to speak with God and ask His Son Jesus to become our Savior and Redeemer. In this way we will be forgiven so that we can offer our thanks. We need to use this day that has been set aside to thank God as our motivation to repair, establish, or renew our relationship with Him.
Today is Thanksgiving Day Eve, and Isaiah gives us another verse to encourage us in regard to giving thanks to the Lord our God as we prepare to join with friends and family in thanking Him together for all that we have received over the past year. The point we should dwell on as we enter into thanksgiving is that we are not writing a letter and placing it in the mailbox for the postman to deliver, or typing an email and hitting the send button hoping it makes it across the internet to Him… No, God is in our midst, and when we thank him in prayer He is right there hearing our every word, every song, and joining in our revelry. Our Heavenly Father is the guest of honor at our festivities, and is receiving the gift of our thanks in person…
It’s Tuesday, and we are drawing closer to the day when we will celebrate a national day of Thanksgiving in the United States of America, but thanking God is not something that should be particular to any certain country or people, but to all the earth. Believers should be letting not only their families and neighbors know what God has done for them, but sharing this with all people everywhere. Today let’s sing praises to the Lord, and do so loudly enough for the whole world to hear, so that our voices will invite every man woman and child to join us in faith.
When we enter into our prayer closets do we do so with praise on our lips, or have we prepared a long list of needs and troubles that we can’t wait to lay tearfully before the throne? Are we glad to be coming before our Father, and are we excited to be able to talk to Him about our problems, or are our eyes filling more and more with tears as we take each step closer to our audience with Him? Although there are countless sorrows and troubles lifted up to the Lord in prayer each day, isn’t it remarkable that Heaven is filled with praise and worship… not wailing, tears of sorrow, or the sound of mourning. So, how should we begin our prayers? How should we enter into the presence of God?
Do we only pray, I mean really pray, in times of trouble? In the other times of life, when things are good, and we are happy, or complacent in our lives, what is the nature of our prayers? We pray fervently, and without ceasing when confronted by danger, and reach out to the Lord with all our might in our troubles, but when all is well, or our circumstances are filled with happiness, we find that our prayers become light and airy, and we only pray them as we find a spare moment, or during our appointed times of prayer. Our prayers of thanksgiving seem to be eclipsed by those we pray in the midst of suffering, and anxiousness. Is this how we should pray? Should we only thank him once we get what we want? No, God should be lifted up and glorified in all things, and His joy is meant to be be found in us because of His presence there.
This is the final day of the year, and what better way to close it out than with a doxology, a concluding prayer extolling the virtues and power of God, and lifting up the glory He has placed in Jesus Christ who abides in us, and the Church of which we are members by our faith. Praise Him now!
As Christians we begin each day by thanking the Lord for His many blessings, but in the United States we celebrate a certain day in which entire families gather together and thank Him as one. We call this Thanksgiving Day, and although the secular join in by having a festive feast together, it began long ago as a holiday of Christian prayer; a time for worship, and thanksgiving, offered up as we thanked Him for His provision, protection, and the abundance of our lives… praying all this in the name of Jesus.
Whether facing trouble, pain, or times of great joy, and happiness, as Christians we are told to rejoice always, and to keep our faith strong enough to succeed in doing so we are encouraged to pray without ceasing. By praying in this way we can face whatever circumstances confront us. Then, once we have learned to rejoice in whatever we have experienced, we are told to faithfully give thanks to God for it. This is how Jesus lived, and how he teaches us to live. His life demonstrates the manner in which we are to walk in our life of faith while rejoicing, and drinking from the cup of God’s will.
As brothers and sisters in Christ do we love one another as we should? Does this love spring forth from Jesus within us, and cause our faith to grow stronger as we exercise it? When we love, and are loved by others in Christ, we should thank God for this, and for them, because this is the light of our Savior shining forth from within us, and the love that God is giving us of Himself.
Today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States, and it is a day when we join together across the nation to thank God for all of His many blessings during the past year. For some of us this has been a particularly hard year. We have lost loved ones to COVID-19, and had our families divided by contentious politics, but neither of these hardships, nor our other challenges, have been too great for God to overcome. So put away your mourning, broken hearts, and bitterness, as we thank God for the blessings we have received this year instead... even if you live elsewhere around the world, use this opportunity to thank God, and praise Jesus today for the many blessings in your life.
Do we think that we are spiritually wealthy? Do we think that we have succeeded in our faith to the point where we are not only righteous, but perhaps we feel that we are on the verge of becoming holy? If our chests are puffed up in our spiritual walk, and we feel that all our blessings are well deserved, then at our best, we are only on the cusp of faith, and are worshipping ourselves.