Canadian Thanksgiving 2001

Canadian Thanksgiving 2001

“Always be joyful. Keep on praying. No matter what happens, always be thankful, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.” 1Thess.5:16-18 (NLT)

Comedian Billy Crystal plays the part of a bored baby boomer in a movie, who sells radio advertising time. One the day he visits his son’s school to tell about his work along with other fathers, he suddenly lets loose a deadpan monologue to the bewildered youngsters in the class:

Value this time in your life, kids, because this is the time in your life when you still have your choices. It goes by fast.

When you’re a teenager, you think you can do anything and you do. Your twenties are a blur.

Thirties you raise your family, you make a little money, and you think to yourself, "What happened to my twenties?"

Forties, you grow a little pot belly, you grow another chin. The music starts to get too loud, one of your old girlfriends from high school becomes a grandmother.

Fifties, you have a minor surgery-you’ll call it a procedure, but it’s a surgery.

Sixties, you’ll have a major surgery, the music is still loud, but it doesn’t matter because you can’t hear it anyway.

Seventies, you and the wife retire to Fort Lauderdale. You start eating dinner at 2:00 in the afternoon, you have lunch around 10:00, breakfast the night before, spend most of your time wandering around malls looking for the ultimate soft yogurt and muttering, "How come the kids don’t call? How come the kids don’t call?"

The eighties, you’ll have a major stroke, and you end up babbling with some Jamaican nurse who your wife can’t stand, but who you call mama.

Any questions?

If that’s what life is all about, it sure looks we will have a whole lot to be thankful for, right?

Andrew Carnegie, the multimillionaire, left $1 million for one of his relatives. The lucky guy, eh? But guess what he did return. He cursed Carnegie thoroughly because he had left $365 million to public charities and had cut him off with just one measly million. Now not one of here would complain, would u, if you inherited a million dollars?

I trust that today as you come together to celebrate, remember this well, that you have been given more than one million dollars as God’s child, as one who has found Jesus Christ and trusted in Him and belonging to Him. In Christ, we are millionaires, nay more than that, we are co-heirs with Him. Yes, for those of us who has received Christ in our hearts, this is what the Bible promises

Romans 8:16-17 (NKJV)

16The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.

Grasp the implications of that! The terrorist Mohd. Atta in his Islamic dream, dream of a heaven with virgins at his side as he pilot the plane he was on into the WTC, God promises better than that… Imagine that, all the riches of heaven that belongs to Jesus, God is saying is ours too. No don’t imagine, you can’t even begin to imagine! The Bible in 1 Cor.2:9 (NLT)says:

That is what the Scriptures mean when they say,

“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.”

Let me read again this time in NLT:

Romans 8:16-17 (NLT)

16 For his Holy Spirit speaks to us deep in our hearts and tells us that we are God’s children. 17 And since we are his children, we will share his treasures—for everything God gives to his Son, Christ, is ours, too.

for everything God gives to his Son, Christ, is ours, too!.

Think of the most incredible pleasures and riches multiply that a few million times…

Again in Ephesians 3:20 (NRSV) it is loudly proclaimed that God : “is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine.”

That is why Paul praises God in Ephesians 1:3-5 (NLT)

3 How we praise God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we belong to Christ. 4 Long ago, even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. 5 His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave him great pleasure.

And don’t miss this out, it gives God tremendous joy to give us the best of the best, of the best! If I an earthly imperfect father can rejoice in giving my kids enjoyment, last year I spent a ton to give my kids one day at Six Flags Marine World, I do it gladly, can you begin to imagine what the perfect heavenly Father will do!