“Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the [N]ame of our Lord Jesus Christ…”  (Ephesians 5:20)

 

As we have wrotten before, this is the day when some will give thanks to God and others will be thanking other people and some will be thanking the air. Those (1st 2″) first two mentioned are in the right and the third are funny, sad, and make me angry all at the same time.

It is good that there is a national day to give thanks but it should not give cause to being unthankful the other (364) three hundred and sixty four days of the year. Being unthankful is a gateway sin to all other sins (Romans 1). Being un thankful is a great way to offer priase and worship to God, when one runs out of things to pray for (as that could really happen) they can always offer thanks. In fact, the giving of thanks should be the greatest portion of one’s prayer time. When (1) one ceases to give thanks unto God (1) one should expect God’s giving to dry up. This is not necessarily due to God’s needing our thanks but it will soon cause one to forget one’s great need of God and that is not due to God needing us to remember our need for Him, it is simply true.

Any friendship that is null of thanks will eventually dry up and end. We should always be quick to offer thanks to others. we should give thanks to God, family, friends, co-workers, and strangers. Giving thanks not only shows appreciation to another but it acknowledges them and what they did or did not do. I have noticed that the giving simple acknowledgement or others is greatly missing in our society. When simple acknoledgement disappears thanks and thankfulness is soon gone.

When i was a kid people would wave to those they passed when driving.  I still wave at drivers I drive past and people i see walking or working in their yards. Some wave back, some do not and some seem shocked. When I pass others while walking on a side walk or in a mall I will smile, nod my head or simply say, hey, hi or hello, and I get the same reaction. Sometimes I see persons delighted and react with pleasure and are even thankful for the acknowledgement.

We are told in Scripture to acknowledge God in all our ways. One way to do this is through thanksgiving for all God does for you and others. How often do you acknowledge God or give Him praise and thanks for what He does for others? Do you ever other Him thanks and praise when He actsl in the lives of others. Do you ever read about or hear about something in the news and thank God for it as you recognize it as a work of God?

I remember seeing a story featured on the news and I was awestruck and I was moved to tears and thanks. The report spoke of and showed a car driving  on a street or racing others cars, it went of the road drove sideways on a dirt wall and began to roll back down the wall toward the road and at the car did this it was about to smack observers and just then it seemed like something from inside the wall of dirt reached out and pushed the car, causing it to pass over the observer, miraculously missing them. Even the news reported, who sees much on the job was somewhat mesmerized at the event.

Readers, this was God caught on camera.I was overwhelmed and sat frozen asthis was shown over and over again. I recored what I could and I watched it over and over and replayed it for eveone I knew. If you are not somewhat awestruck by this, I am not explaining it right.

After writing the above I would like to itemize things I am thankful to God for:
* The Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
* God, the Father Who loved me and chose to put me in Christ and send His Son to die for me, to be buried for me, and to rise for.
* Christ my Lord and Saviour Who came to seek me and to save me and define me.
* The Holy spirit, Who lives with me, Who revealed to me God the Father and God the Son, Who is leding me to be Christ-like, Who leads me, guides me, teaches me, reminds me, and allows me to understand God and myself.
* I thank God for my ministries and for putting me into the ministry, enabling me to do what I do and for showing me His trust and faithfulness.
* I thank God for the forgiveness of my sin(s) and my salvation.
* I thank God for allowing me and teaching me to do for others what He has done and does for me.
* I thanks God for the forgiveness of my sins and for those sins He uses to keep me humble and allows me the grace to look upon others as He looks upon me.
* I am thankful for the Word of God and for all it means to me and for the understanding God allows me to have in it.
* I thank God for my wife, who loves me so very well and who is the evidence of God’s love and favour.
* I thank God for my children, who has made it so easy being a parent. I have loved every second I have had with them.
* I thank God for my Mom, who loved me, and still loves me. I thank God for all the patience she had for me and for the times that patience ran out.
* I thank God for my Dad, who demonstrated the grace of God like no one I have ever known. He truly was made a new creature in Christ. For those that knew him and know him has seen a work of God.
* I am thankful to God for my Father-in- Law, Mother-in-law,a nd Brother-in-law. There exists many jokes regarding in-laws but nonever applied to mine. I am thankful for the close bond we have shared for over (2) two decades. The bonds of Christ-ianity, family, and friendship could not be stronger or more empathized.
* I thank God that I was fortunate to really know all of my Grandparents, Especially my Big Mama and my Grandpa.
* I am thankful for my Aunts and Uncles. Especially the one who helped lead me to the Lord Jesus and for the one who is with God now and who I always looked forward to seeing because she alway, always made me laughand that is not walways easy to do. I am thankful for my uncle that taught me much about life.
* I am thankful for my cousins, the ones I see and the ones I wish I could see me more.
* I am thankful for my brothers and sisters, we may not be as close as other brothers and sister but we are still brothers and sisters.
* I am thankful for my nephews and nieces, a prouder uncle there is not.
* I am thankful for my brothers and sisters in Christ. Who have taught me much about God and God has allowed me to teach about Him.
* I thank God for all those that it has been my pleasure knowing.
* I thank God for all those it has not been a pleasure knowing, but i have benefitted from knowing anyway.
* I am thankful for all the health I have enjoyed and for the illnesses and infirmities that have taught me somemuch about God, myself, and others. Like Paul, “I glory in my infirmities.” I am also thankful I can understand that, too.
* I am thankful for others who have showed grace in their difficult times, what a show of grace they have been.
* I am thankful that I can be thankful in and for all things.
* I am thankful for red lights and green lights for even they serve God’s purposes and my well fare.
* I am thankful for the people I have known for years but have moved on. It’s sad but that is how life works for better or for worse.
* I thank God for those that I had lost contact with but now know again. It shows that God’s people may be distant from each but we are still God’s people and the love between God’s people never dissappears.
* I am thankful for the great differences that distinguishes God’s elect and those that are not. This can be easily recognized in families. One part of the family is obviously Christ-ian and the other side of the same family is obviously not. The difference is like night and day. I have known families and one side is Christ-ian and the otherside of the same family is decidedly not Christ-ian and the difference cannot be different or over-stated. One side has allthings in order and the other side could not be more disfunctional.
I am thankful that God has given me a hunger and thirst for righteousness and for knowledge and that He is the answer to both.
* I am thankful for the minds and spirit God has put into my daughter, I look at them and could not love them more nor could I be more thankful, nor could i sit in more wonder. * I thankful for the love my children have for me, it is so evident. In our home no on one has ever or will ever have to wonder if they were loved or were the object of much thankfulness and praise to God.
*I am so thankful that my wife and children know God and have their very own walk with Him and that it is as evident as it is.
* I am thankful for the love and petience my wife has had and has in me and also for the time when her patience, too, runs out and she puts me in my place.
* Trust me when I say it is not easy being a wife or daughter to a man of God. They all think that they take a back seat to God and they are right. But with them having a healthy relationship with God allows them to understand. There are times, a lot of times I will spend hours and days locked up in a bedroom with God and I am thankful they understand this and that they know they can still come in when they need me or want me.
* There are times when I will remain up whole days and whole nights reading, studying, praying or just spending time with God. When this happens i can then go into hibernation for days afterward and they understand this and put up with it for a time. I am thankful for their understanding and patience.
* I am thankful for the different local churches I have been a part of. and for those that have been a part of me.
* I am thanful for the jobs I have had in my life and all That I have learned about life from them. I also give thanks to God for all that I have learned from co-workers, bosses and clients that I have learned from. At the time I may not have known to be tahnkful but afterward I have learned to be. The one company I worked for and had so much to complain about (wrongly) is the one job I am most thankful for today. In fact, it is the one company and boss I would return to if I ever returned to one. This job and company gave me the most persons i still have contacts with today, almost (2) two decades later. A better team of persons I have never worked with before or after.
* I am thankful to God for all the persons he has allowed me to, hopefully, influence over the years for Him, a greater honout does not exist.

I could go on and on, but we will cease here. If you read this and think to yourself, “what about this, isn’t he thankful for this, please know that I am thankful to God “for all things.”

I hope you are able to sit around a thanksgiving dinner today with those you are truly thankful to God for. I hope you are truly able to thank God and not just the ceiling. If You are able to truly be thankful to God, you can truly be thankful for the salvation that is fould in Christ and Christ Alone.

If you cannot thank God or know not how to show God praise and thanks today, I am truly sorry for you, but I am thankful that today can be the day all of that changes for you, for today is the day of salvation and might be the day of your salvation.

I am thankful that today we can explain to uou the Gospel Of Christ and how one is saved from their sins and it’s great penalty of everlasting torment in a place clled Hell.
To be saved by Christ, one must understand that one has greatly offended God and His Holiness. How has one done this? One offends God by one’s very existence and love of sin. Everyone has sinned and everyone is a sinner. If you have lied or used God’s Name in a sinful way, if you have ever stolen, committed adultery in a bed or in your mind, if you have every loved anything or anyone more than you have loved God, if you have ever wanted something that another has had you my reader have sinned and offended the Holiness of God.
Anyone, my reader that has done any of the above you have sinned and are deserving of justice which is Hell. Even if you have offfended in only one point of one of the sins listed above, you have broken them all according to the Word of God. Even if you have only committed sin in your mind, you have broken them all. Even if you have never comitted any of the ming in action or in mind, the Scripture stated that you are still a sinner bu your very nature of existing. My reader, I am simply saying that there is absolutely no way you have not sinned and offended God and His righteousness. I am telling you, that according to God and His word, you are going to hell and thay there is absolutely no hope for you outside of the Gospel of Christ.
IN other words, your “good” works will not save you from your sins and it’s great penalty. Your “good” works and bad works will not be weights and even if that was the case, Scripture teaches that all the works you may consider to be “good” are as filthy as a woman’s bloody menstrual clothe!!!
My reader, the only way of salvation is if Christ died for you and the only way to provr that and to know it is by your submission to His terms, which are repentance and belief.
repentance is a desire to turn away from yoyr sins and rebellion against God’s will and to believe in what He did in your stead.
What did Christ do in the stead of all believing sinners? He lived the perfect and sinless life that God requires of us all, He died in the stead of believing sinners, He was buried in the stead of believing sinners, He rose again in the stead of believing sinners, and He appeased the great wrath of God in the stead of believing sinners. Christ is offered to all that will repent of their sins and believe in Him, who will seek to submit to His will and His ways.
Today is the day to repent and believe andto know what it is to be thankful and to give thanks.

Godspeed.