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Being Thankful People
Contributed by Glenn Pease on Mar 10, 2021 (message contributor)
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1. Thank God For Himself
Contributed on Mar 10, 2021
May God help us to be thankful for our past; thankful for our present, but most of all thankful for the permanent, which means, thanking God for Himself.
A chaplain of some prison trustees once came to his group and announced that he was going on a six week trip to Europe. He had been a faithful servant to them for years, and they appreciated him a great deal. They began to slap him on the back as they expressed their congratulations, and they ...read more
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2. Thanksgiving Power
Contributed on Mar 10, 2021
The sound of praise and thanksgiving is the best offering you can give to God. Not only does such music please God, it sends us into life with thanksgiving power.
Almost everyone has heard of Leo Tolstoy the author of War and Peace, but few have ever heard of his grandfather Prince Nicholas Volkausky. This old man took 8 of his slaves on his country estate and formed them into an orchestra. He taught them how to play the finest classical music in the ...read more
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3. A Thankful Perspective
Contributed on Mar 10, 2021
What distinguishes the Christians thankfulness from the natural thankfulness of all people? The distinction consists basically in the fact that the Christian has someone to thank.
G. K. Chesterton has written a delightful account of a students encounter with his professor at Oxford. The professor, or tutor as they called them, was a bright young man, but he was a follower of the pessimistic views of Schopenhauer. He was disgusted with the weary worthless lives around him, ...read more
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4. Negative Thanksgiving
Contributed on Mar 10, 2021
This was David's song, and if we see life whole and see the infinite realm of the non-existent and non-happenings of life, we to will have a song of praise and a heart of gratitude regardless of life's troubles and trials.
Sometimes we get so wrapped up in being occupied with what happens that we forget that there is so much to be thankful for because of what doesn't happen. For example: Peter Marshall died of a heart attack as a middle aged man with great potential ahead of him as Chaplain of the Senate and ...read more
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5. Thanksgiving Focus
Contributed on Mar 10, 2021
David starts this Psalm by telling himself to praise the Lord, and he ends it by telling himself to do it again. If we would tell ourselves as we begin the day to praise the Lord and not forget all His benefits, and if we would end the day by doing the same, we would be different people.
You will, no doubt, think me strange for saying it, but I am thankful for my ignorance. It gives me so much to be thankful for. My vast ocean of ignorance is my playground where I can fish for new insights, and I can dive for the sunken treasure of golden truths that lay hidden in God's Word. ...read more
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6. Top Level Thanksgiving
Contributed on Mar 10, 2021
Top-level thanksgiving depends on deep awareness of the goodness of God, and none can have this awareness until they have the assurance of salvation in Christ. You must experience God's goodness and mercy in being forgiven and set free from sin to have the thankful heart of the Psalmist.
Leslie Weatherhead tells the story of the 5 year old boy use to listen to the radio even though he could not understand anything but the children's programs. He observed that his parents listened every day to what was called the news. He could make nothing of that. One Sunday morning he went ...read more
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7. A Grateful Heart
Contributed on Mar 10, 2021
Charles E. Jefferson said, "If Christians would praise God more the world would doubt Him less." Let us admit it that we seldom make it known how grateful we are to be Christians by our praise of God and thanksgiving before the world.
Thanksgiving is unconditional for the believer. We are not to be thankful only because of blessings, but even in spite of burdens, for life at its worst does not change the most precious truth for which we are to be thankful, and that is salvation through Jesus. There have been Christian people ...read more
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8. A Thankful Spirit
Contributed on Mar 10, 2021
A thankful spirit encourages others to see the positive in their own lives, and so being thankful is a ministry in a world where the bad news is thrown at us so often we tend to forget the good news. We need people with a thankful spirit to remind us that light is as real as the dark
The more I study the history of man and the sea, the more grateful I become that I am a landlubber. Tens of thousands of lives have been lost in ship wrecks in my lifetime. But some sailors have much to be thankful for in spite of ship wrecks. John O'Brian, for example, was off the coast of ...read more
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9. Thank God For Man
Contributed on Mar 10, 2021
Notice that Paul was thankful to God, but it was for these men that he was thankful. This does not seem like a very startling revelation until you begin to examine Paul's thinking all through the New Testament. You discover that man is the primary means by which Paul is made thankful.
Edward R. Morrow once told of the commencement speaker who was a Yale graduate. He used the 4 letters of YALE for his speech outline. Y was for youth; A was for ambition; L was for loyalty, and E was for energy. After his tedious trip through these four points one of the board graduates turned ...read more
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10. Thank God For Rights
Contributed on Mar 10, 2021
Jesus paid the ultimate price for the ultimate right, which was the right to become a child of God. As Christians we have a right to confess our sins, be forgiven, and become children of God. As Americans we have a right to share this good news with anyone.
On Sept. 17, 1787 the leaders of our nation signed a document, which is to our freedom as Americans what the New Testament is to our freedom in Christ. They signed the Constitution Of The United States, and that is now the longest lasting Constitution every drawn up by leaders of a major nation. ...read more
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11. Thank God
Contributed on Mar 10, 2021
People can even take a miracle for granted, and not be thankful. Not being thankful is one of mankind's greatest sins. It shows that man is blind to the grace of God. To go through life and never say thank you to God is to live the ultimate in the cursed life.
Ed Spencer was a hero of one of the worst shipwrecks ever on Lake Michigan. He was studying for the ministry at the Methodist Seminary in Evanston, Ill. On the night of Sept. 8, 1860 he was awakened by the shouts of other students in the dormitory. A shipwreck had taken place not far away. And ...read more
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12. Thanks Be To God
Contributed on Mar 10, 2021
Paul cannot thank God enough for the blessings and joys of the victorious Christian life. It is a life where the enemies of the cross are defeated, and the captives of darkness are being led out into the light by Christ the conquering King, as He rides in His triumphal train.
The comedian Joe E. Brown lost his son in World War II. Captain Don Brown was a handsome and healthy strong boy with a quick mind and a flair for leadership. He was student president at UCLA, and student Colonel of ROTC. He was an ideal boy, and as far as father was concerned, the sun rose and ...read more
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13. Thank God For America
Contributed on Mar 10, 2021
Christians can celebrate the 4the of July as a sacred day of thanksgiving, for it was the Declaration of Independence that led to the Constitution and the forming of the United States with all of its freedoms and religious liberty.
Governments often fear Christians because they have a loyalty to God which they put above their loyalty to government, and this limits their power to control. Jesus started this by His famous response, "Render onto Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are ...read more
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14. The Prayer Of Thanksgiving
Contributed on Mar 10, 2021
Lets face the reality of this. Much, if not most, of what we have to thank God for comes to us through other people. They are the primary tools of God to achieve His purpose in history.
My earliest childhood memories of being in church are of the rope that I could ride. The thick rope hung down through the ceiling in the church entry way. I was so little that when the rope was pulled to ring the bell in the belfry, I could hang on to it and get a ride as it would pull me up off ...read more
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15. Thank God He Let Me Play
Contributed on Mar 10, 2021
That is the number one basis for Thanksgiving. It is just the fact that God has let you play the game. All of us are only here today because God has let us play the game of life.
William F. Kirk was a columnist who loved baseball, and just before his death he wrote this poem couched in baseball terms to express his thanks for life. "The doctor knows what his trained eyes see, And he says it is the last of the 9th for me; One more swing while the clouds loom dark, And ...read more
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16. Thank God For A Happy Ending
Contributed on Mar 10, 2021
A little boy was petting his beagle dog and his mother said, "That dog looks so sad." He responded, "Yeah, it has a very sad face," but pointing to the wagging tail he added, "But look it has a happy ending." That is the message of the Word of God about history,
A woman went into a meat market and ordered two pounds of hamburger. The clerk yelled back to the butcher, "Two pounds of enthusiasm!" "Why do you call it enthusiasm," she asked? "Because he puts everything he's got into it." This is certainly a description ...read more