Thanksgivingness: Honor It!

Thanksgivingness: Honor It! Kelly Durant

Psalm 116:17 I will offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving,

And will call upon the name of the Lord.

18 I will pay my vows to the Lord

Now in the presence of all His people,

19 In the courts of the Lord’s house,

In the midst of you, O Jerusalem.

2. How many of you have ever had a street beggar come up to you and ask you for money? How do you feel when they are very thankful and thank you after you give it? To the contrary, how many of you have given to a beggar that was not thankful? How did you feel then? We know the answers, and we must equate this within the context of God and how he feels about us showing Him thanksgiving for everything, our health, family, and nation! Thanksgiving is a must if you and I want God or anyone’s favorable opinion!

Thanksgiving Day reminds you and I must take a close look at what this day is for and as Christians take it seriously. We should get together all the facts around it and compare it to the past and to the events in the Bible with the people of God. Thanksgiving Day is unique to the U.S.A. and it was started by Christian Pilgrims wanting to thank God even though the non-Christian progressives try to hide that fact in the history books.

Most everyone knows that it was a harvest celebration in which the Natives and the European immigrants got together to have a big feast to be thankful for the food; enough food to get them through the cold and brutal winter. Harvest Festivals are practiced by most cultures in the world, but this one is unique and is remembered because the kindness of the Natives prevented the starvation and death of many of the settling families.

3. Why should we highlight being thankful this year? Because we can see the thankfulness of many is just not there anymore! People have so much in this country and yet they complain loud about so many petty things! It seems to get worse year after year that people are more and more less appreciative to God and to what you or anyone else does for them. “The love of many are turning cold”, and it can make you angry and discouraged to want to show kindness only to see it is not valued. Sadly, in the church, and even in our church some people are not valued appropriately and thanked for what they do! Our society is corrupted, we must educate others that the provision we are surrounded by does not come from the crumbs of the government, but from God and the labor of His dedicated people. How many people have you made thankful lately?

The problem is people in their routines forget where all things come from, and prosperity can only happen with God granting peace and His favor. It takes a whole army of people to move food and basic needs form place to place. Some people live in a fantasy and they think trucks should just show up full of turkeys and that one should just be there place food on the table for them just because they expect it! Society is made up of busy armies of bees, but some people are more comparable to blood sucking mosquitos! The bee is praised while the mosquito is not welcome!

We need to educate our family, friends, and society! To begin with, we must tell people that it is God and the Christian faith that prospered and protected this nation originally. Despite certain horrible past atrocities (which every nation has), this nation has been for the most part a nation fighting evil, worshipping Christ, and being thankful to God! And we need to be thankful to the migrant worker and native born American worker who by the millions before us built up our farms, and built infrastructures of trains and trucks to transport to us our daily food. Each bite of food we get was produced by much work and trafficking of goods, sweat, and even blood from accidents on the job. I’ve been around farms and livestock and I know accidents are something you just have to live with! Never take for granted a single bite of food!

4. When God raised up the Israelites out of Egypt one of the first things they did was establish certain days of gratitude, such as the Passover. God’s people were commended to repeat a festival of thanksgiving so that they would remember it was miracles that God did to keep them alive amidst destruction. A few thousand years later and many of us are still remembering, right?

As Christians we celebrate Easter, the resurrection of Jesus, which coincidently corresponds to the day of Passover and as Christians we should honor a few good holidays to refresh our memories on God’s goodness. Thanksgiving is unique to the United States and every country has special days, but how wonderful it is when that day includes thanking God for his mercy of provision sharing in peace with others. Christians should celebrate this day well because it is to thank God for freedom of worship and provision! This country is unique because of God’s hand from the beginning. Freedom seeking worshippers were the first immigrants.