LETS BE THANKFUL:
I realize that the traditional Thanksgiving Day is now past but I want to bring a few thoughts our way to do with being thankful.
EPH. 5:20 20Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
Thanksgiving Day began with the Pilgrims of the Plymouth Colony. In 1621, Governor Bradford appointed a day of thanksgiving, a day of feasting and expressing gratitude. Abraham Lincoln, in the midst of the Civil War, in 1863, established the annual celebration of Thanksgiving when he issued a proclamation that the last Thursday in November be set apart as a day of prayer and thanksgiving. Congress changed this day, in 1941, to the fourth Thursday in November. But for Christians, thanksgiving should not end there, we should be thankful every day, not just once a year.
We should be thankful for the:
I. Freedom to worship.
A. Our forefathers came to this country to escape the bondage of those who would try to regulate their faith and bring them under the bondage of a state religion.
Now days it seems that we cant worship the true and living God the way this country started out doing because we might affined some infidel who says his rights have been violated, there’s many places now that prayer in Jesus name has been practically stopped. Iv always been of the opinion that freedom to worship meant, freedom to worship JEHOVAH GOD and his Only begotten Son & The One and only Savior The Lord Jesus Christ without any interference from the government.
All of this paganism that our government has allowed to come into this country is nothing more than the master plan of Satan. If the people don’t want to come to this country, and except this country’s worship of Jesus Christ as the Only Mediator between God and man then they should pack up and go back to where they came from, the planes are living every hour.
In today’s politically correct environment where you have to be careful to keep from offending anyone, we might all have to give reports like this fourth grader did that reported on the origins of the Thanksgiving holiday, he said in his report; “The pilgrims came here seeking freedom of you know what. When they landed, they gave thanks to you know who. Because of them, we can worship each Sunday, you know where.”
But as for me and my house we shall serve the Lord.
John 4:23 23But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him
No one can worship the Father in spirit and in truth apart from the Lord Jesus Christ.
John 8:31-32 31Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; 32And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
The infidels are continually trying to change His word revealing the truth, that they are not His diciples.
Ephesians 2:13-1813But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
These people that are not in Christ Jesus are lost & in their sin.
LETS BE THANKFUL for:
II. Grace to Endure.
A. For the Pilgrims, the road to freedom was not easy. They would endure many hardships. The Pilgrims would not fully understand in their lifetime the reason for the suffering that would come their way.
The first official Thanksgiving Day occurred as a unique holy day in 1621 - in the fall of that year with lingering memories of the difficult & terrible winter they had just been through a few months before, in which scores and scores of babies and children and young people and adults had starved to death, and so many of the Pilgrims had gotten to a point where they were even ready to go back to England.
They had gotten into a ship and were ready to give up and go back And then they saw another ship coming from the other way, and on that ship there was a Frenchman named Delaware, and he came with some medical supplies and food, so then they had enough hope to go back and to try to live in the midst of those adverse sufferings once again.
II Corinthians 12:9 9And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness
Matthew 19:26 26But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.
Let me say when we read verses like these it strengthen our faith and gives us renewed courage to keep on keeping on.
Hebrews 13:5-6 5Let your conversation* be without covetousness;* and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. 6So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.
LETS also BE THANKFUL:
III. For all the many wonderful Blessings He has bestowed upon us.
A. When our forefathers met for that first Thanksgiving Day, it was not only to give thanks to God for the end of adversity and for being able to endure hardness, but also to thank Him for His blessings of food, clothing, shelter, and the freedoms they enjoyed.
B. We may acknowledge our Divine Provider over the fine meal that we partake of, but how often are we deliberately thankful for the water from our taps?
The wood for our houses and our furniture? The paper for our books and napkins and note pads? The brick and metal and fabric and countless other materials we use and enjoy? God through his Master plan at creation made them all possible.
Listen as I read
James 1:17 17Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
Some time people may find themselves in a bitter situation that there seems no end in sight and no way to remedy their problem, and this might cause these folk to become angry with God, and they charge God with unfairness.
Listen to this true story of a man named Charnet.
Out of the history of Napoleon of France, Leonard Griffith tells a moving story of a political prisoner by the name of Charnet.
Charnet was thrown into prison simply because he had accidentally, by a remark, offended the emperor Napoleon.
Cast into a dungeon cell, presumably left to die, and as the days, weeks, and months passed by, Charnet became embittered at his fate. Slowly but surely, he began to lose his faith in God. And one day, in a moment of rebellious anger, he scratched on the wall of his cell, “All things come by chance,” which reflected the injustice that had come his
way by chance.
He sat in the darkness of that cell growing more bitter by the day. There was one spot in the cell where a single ray of sunlight came every day and remained for a little while. And one morning, to his amazement, he noticed that in the hard, earth floor of that cell a tiny, green blade was breaking through.
It was something living, and it was struggling up toward that shaft of sunlight. It was his only living companion, and his heart went out in joy toward it. He nurtured it with his little ration of water, cultivated it, and helped its growth.
That green blade became his friend. It became his teacher in a sense, and finally it burst through until one day there bloomed from the little plant a beautiful, purple and white flower.
Again, Charnet found himself thinking thoughts about God. so he scratched off the thing he had scribbled on the wall of his dungeon,{ “All things come by chance,”} and in its place wrote, “He who made all things is God.” And somehow, through the guards, their wives, and the gossip of the community, this story reached the ears of Josephine, Napoleon’s wife.
She was so moved by it and so convinced that a man who loved a flower that way could not possibly be a dangerous criminal that she persuaded Napoleon to release him.
So Charnet was set free. You can be sure that he dug out his precious little prison flower, took it with him, and cultivated that plant in the years to come.
And there’s times when all of us may feel down due to what might be happening around us, we’re all human and we let things get to us from time to time, but if we’ll just think back we can see how God has worked in the past to do with problems that we’ve faced and the problem is gone. He worked it out and no doubt He’ll work these others out also, one day the problem will be gone and we might wonder how it was taken care of. With God all things are possible.
God is more anxious to bestow his blessings on us than we are to receive them.
I Thessalonians 5:18 18In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
