11/24/2011 11:30:00 AM
Jeffrey K Radt ("JRed")
Here are a few of my favorite Thanksgiving Day thoughts...
Then there are several passages of Scripture that exhort us to always be thankful...
...to name a few.
Revelation 3:17 "For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked." Today is Thanksgiving Day.
Remember, if you feel 'poor' it's only because you want more than you've been blessed with already. The problem today is that we're constantly told we need things we never really wanted in the first place.
The problem with these so-called 'needs' is that there's never any satisfaction even when you meet them. That's because only Jesus Christ truly satisfies.
Yes, it should be a day of thanksgiving. It should be a day of repentance too.
As we in America celebrate Thanksgiving, and all the great freedoms, advancements, and benefits that the exporting of Christianity to this land brought with it, let us never forget about those millions of other people who are trapped in the bondage of their nations who are held captive to false religions and the human wreckage that those false religions bring.
By the same token, let's never ignore the sins of this nation or try to sweep them under the rug to the point where we ignore repentance altogether.
Again, of course, I'm incredibly thankful for all the blessings that the Lord has bestowed upon me and my family throughout the past year. We're all blessed to live in this nation too.
By the way, I'm not just talking about material blessings either. Through all the anxieties, arguments, disagreements, emotional distress, family issues, fear, heartache, sickness, unemployment, and the general ups-and-downs that are a part of life, He has BLESSED ME RICHLY with His grace!
Do you know what it's like -- what it's truly like -- to go through certain experiences in this life responding to them in such a way that's in complete opposition to what the 'wisdom of the world' tells you about how you should be responding?
Do you know what it's like to face unforeseen trials and tribulation with a complete and total sense of peace that defies all logic? I do because I have. His Word is sure and true.
Be content. Be thankful. Thank God.
I heard someone say that "everyone lives in one of two tents -- contentment or discontentment", and thought that such a statement was (sadly) a perfect description of our culture today. Which 'tent' do you spend most of your time living in?
Yes, times are tough, but this Thanksgiving Day let's all be thankful for our blessings that are both material and spiritual.
Give thanks for the many blessings you have been given this past year. No matter how 'bad' things may seem to you right now, it could probably be so much worse.
I bring this up for good reason. See, as 'bad' as things are in the US right now (and for each of us on an individual and personal level perhaps), I hate to say it, but it pales in comparison to what many of our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ are experiencing in other parts of the world right now.
Imagine having nothing materially speaking. Imagine not being able to put food on the table today. Worse, imagine being persecuted for your faith; persecution that goes far beyond being merely mocked and ridiculed, but that which often leads to imprisonment, torture, and perhaps even death.
Thank God today (and every day) because a thankful heart is one of the primary identifying characteristics of a true believer in Jesus Christ.
From my family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving Day!
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"For the Glory of God and the Advancement of the Christian faith, and the honour of our King and Country."
-- The Mayflower Compact
"To All Ye Pilgrims: Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, beans, squashes, and garden vegetables, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as He has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience; now, I...do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and little ones, do gather...to listen to ye pastor, and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings."
-- William Bradford, the Governor of Plymouth Colony
"This one is so simple that we miss it. Why aren’t we more grateful? There are many answers to that question, but this one is central: we aren’t grateful because we’ve never asked God to give us a grateful heart. By nature we are covetous, greedy, grasping and unhappy. Left to ourselves, we will be just like that rich fool. Generosity isn’t our natural impulse. We aren’t born giving; we’re born getting. Gratitude is not the inborn language of the heart."
-- Ray Pritchard
"Gratitude is an offering precious in the sight of God, and it is one that the poorest of us can make and be not poorer but richer for having made it."
-- A.W. Tozer
"The art of thanksgiving is thanksliving."
-- Anonymous
"Our favorite attitude should be gratitude."
-- Anonymous
"The things we take for granted are dreams to many people."
-- Anonymous
Then there are several passages of Scripture that exhort us to always be thankful...
Psalms 68:19 (KJV) Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah.
Psalms 100:4 (KJV) Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.
Hebrews 12:28 (ESV) Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe,
Colossians 2:7 (KJV) Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.
Colossians 3:15 (ESV) And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.
Colossians 4:2 (KJV) Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving;
2 Timothy 1:3 (ESV) I thank God whom I serve, as did my ancestors, with a clear conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day.
1 Thessalonians 5:18 (KJV) In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
...to name a few.
Revelation 3:17 "For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked." Today is Thanksgiving Day.
Remember, if you feel 'poor' it's only because you want more than you've been blessed with already. The problem today is that we're constantly told we need things we never really wanted in the first place.
The problem with these so-called 'needs' is that there's never any satisfaction even when you meet them. That's because only Jesus Christ truly satisfies.
Yes, it should be a day of thanksgiving. It should be a day of repentance too.
As we in America celebrate Thanksgiving, and all the great freedoms, advancements, and benefits that the exporting of Christianity to this land brought with it, let us never forget about those millions of other people who are trapped in the bondage of their nations who are held captive to false religions and the human wreckage that those false religions bring.
By the same token, let's never ignore the sins of this nation or try to sweep them under the rug to the point where we ignore repentance altogether.
Again, of course, I'm incredibly thankful for all the blessings that the Lord has bestowed upon me and my family throughout the past year. We're all blessed to live in this nation too.
By the way, I'm not just talking about material blessings either. Through all the anxieties, arguments, disagreements, emotional distress, family issues, fear, heartache, sickness, unemployment, and the general ups-and-downs that are a part of life, He has BLESSED ME RICHLY with His grace!
Do you know what it's like -- what it's truly like -- to go through certain experiences in this life responding to them in such a way that's in complete opposition to what the 'wisdom of the world' tells you about how you should be responding?
Do you know what it's like to face unforeseen trials and tribulation with a complete and total sense of peace that defies all logic? I do because I have. His Word is sure and true.
Be content. Be thankful. Thank God.
I heard someone say that "everyone lives in one of two tents -- contentment or discontentment", and thought that such a statement was (sadly) a perfect description of our culture today. Which 'tent' do you spend most of your time living in?
Yes, times are tough, but this Thanksgiving Day let's all be thankful for our blessings that are both material and spiritual.
Give thanks for the many blessings you have been given this past year. No matter how 'bad' things may seem to you right now, it could probably be so much worse.
I bring this up for good reason. See, as 'bad' as things are in the US right now (and for each of us on an individual and personal level perhaps), I hate to say it, but it pales in comparison to what many of our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ are experiencing in other parts of the world right now.
Imagine having nothing materially speaking. Imagine not being able to put food on the table today. Worse, imagine being persecuted for your faith; persecution that goes far beyond being merely mocked and ridiculed, but that which often leads to imprisonment, torture, and perhaps even death.
Thank God today (and every day) because a thankful heart is one of the primary identifying characteristics of a true believer in Jesus Christ.
From my family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving Day!
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