Thanksgiving Series

THANKSgiving!

Numbers 11

Are you a grateful person? Some years ago, a well-meaning customer of the famed Neiman-Marcus Department Store felt prompted to send Stanley Marcus this letter:

Dear Mr. Marcus:

I have been receiving beautiful and expensive brochures from you at regular intervals. It occurs to me that you might divert a little of the fortune you must be spending for this advertising material to raise the salaries of your more faithful employees. For instance, there’s an unassuming, plainly dressed little man on the second floor who always treats me with extreme courtesy when I visit your store and generally persuades me to buy something I don’t really want. Why don’t you pay him a little more? He looks as though he could use it.

Yours truly,

Mrs. W.S.

By return mail came Marcus’ reply:

Dear Madam:

Your letter impressed us so deeply that we called a directors’ meeting immediately, and thanks solely to your own solicitude, voted my father a twenty-dollar-a-week raise.

Yours truly,

Stanley Marcus

Some people are just impossible to please. A large dog walks into a butcher shop carrying a purse in its mouth. He puts the purse down and sits in front of the meat case. "What is it, boy?" the butcher jokingly asks. "Want to buy some meat?" "Woof!" barks the dog. "Hmm," says the butcher. "What kind? Liver, bacon, steak . . ." "Woof!" interrupts the dog. "And how much steak? Half a pound, one pound . . ." "Woof!" The amazed butcher wraps up the meat and finds the money in the dog’s purse. As the dog leaves he decides to follow. The dog enters an apartment house, climbs to the third floor and begins scratching at a door. With that, the door swings open and an angry man starts shouting at the dog. "Stop!" yells the butcher. "He’s the most intelligent animal I’ve ever seen!" "Intelligent?" says the man. "This is the third time this week he’s forgotten his key."

Does God consider gratitude something all of us should grasp?

2 Timothy 3:2-5

2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents,

UNGRATEFUL,

unholy,

3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good,

4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God--

5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.

(NIV)

Romans 1:20-21

20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,

21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God,

NOR WERE THANKFUL,

but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

(NKJ)

THANKS or NO THANKS?

Numbers 11:4-6

4 The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, "If only we had meat to eat!

5 We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost-- also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic.

6 But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!"

(NIV)

God was giving them daily portions of the food of Angels, enough for everyone in their family AT NO COST!

Numbers 11:7-9

7 The manna was like coriander seed and looked like resin.

8 The people went around gathering it, and then ground it in a handmill or crushed it in a mortar. They cooked it in a pot or made it into cakes. And it tasted like something made with olive oil.

9 When the dew settled on the camp at night, the manna also came down.

(NIV)

How versatile was manna! It could be ground like meal, cooked in a pot, made into cakes! You could have as much as you needed, no one went hungry. It was the ultimate protein bar, containing 100% of the Daily Nutritional requirements for life in the wilderness! Or anywhere, on earth or in Heaven!

Psalms 78:24-25

24 he rained down manna for the people to eat, he gave them the grain of heaven.

25 Men ate the bread of angels; he sent them all the food they could eat.

(NIV)

But they “lost their appetite”! Tables laden down with food, provided AT NO COST, and they lost their appetite! They had filet of manna, manna-cotti, manna burgers, and ba-manna nut bread, and still lost their appetite! Why? Not because the taste had become tiresome, but because they were ungrateful. Ingratitude! All they needed but not what they wanted – leeks, onions, garlic, fish – all the stuff that leads to bellyaches and bad breath! No “Thanks” in their lives! They were not complaining about their DIET but about what God was DOING! What You are doing for us, God, is not enough!