What We Have To Be Thankful For
This Thanksgiving most everyone in our nation will celebrate. Supermarkets will sell more turkeys this week than all the combined turkeys the whole year. Turkeys will be carved, dinners planned, family gathered together.
IT’S THANKSGIVING!! I love this time of year.
BIG QUESTION: To whom or what are we to be thankful?
EXCERPTS OF THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATIONS:
George Washington Thanksgiving Proclamation 1789
- Let us thank God for his kind care and protection…and for the great degree of plenty which we have enjoyed.
Abraham Lincoln Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1863
- It has seemed to me fit and proper that the gifts of God should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged with one heart and one voice by the whole American people.
Dwight D. Eisenhower Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1956
- Let all of us…give thanks to God and prayerful contemplation to those eternal truths and universal principles of Holy Scripture which have inspired such measure of true greatness as this nation has achieved.
Lyndon B. Johnson Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1964
- Let us give thanks to God for His graciousness and generosity to us - Pledge to Him our everlasting devotion – beseech his divine guidance and the wisdom and strength to recognize and follow that guidance.
QUOTE: Thanksgiving is a course from which you never graduate.
Here are some things we can all be thankful for:
#1. I’M GRATEFUL TO GOD FOR THE GRACE HE’S SHOWN TO ME.
Ephesians 2:8 (NCV) “You have been saved by grace through believing. You did not save yourselves; it was a gift from God.”
There’s a list found in Psalms of just some of the things God does in our lives by grace.
Psalms 103:2-11 (LB) “I will not forget the glorious things God does for me.
He forgives all my sins.
He heals me.
He ransoms me from hell.
He surrounds me with love.
He fills my life with good things.
He is merciful and tender
He is slow to get angry.
He never bears a grudge.
He has not punished us as we deserve for our sins.”
Are those things to be thankful for? I’d say so.
#2. I AM THANKFUL TO GOD FOR THE PLAN HE HAS FOR ME.
Life is not an accident.
You were made for a reason/a purpose.
God has a plan for your life.
Jeremiah 29:11 “I have good plans for you’, says the Lord, `I don’t plan to hurt you. I plan to give you hope and a good future.”
The more I discover His plan for me, get in the center of it, the more my life unfolds and my true potential surfaces.
#3. I’M THANKFUL TO GOD FOR THE CHANGES HE’S MAKING IN ME.
God is helping make changes in my life that I could never do on my own.
It’s not about cleaning up your act, getting it all together – not turning over a new leaf.
It is a redemptive move of God over a person who comes to Him willingly saying: “I’m not God, you are, I believe in you and I respond to you by obeying and yielding.
You just come to Him with the good, the bad, and the ugly. Then He starts making positive changes in your lives.
Philippians 2:13 “God is working in you, giving you the desire to obey Him and the power to do what pleases Him.”
#4. I’M GRATEFUL FOR THE HOME HE’S PREPARED FOR ME IN HEAVEN
2 Corinthians 5:1 “We know that our body will be destroyed. But when that happens God will have a house for us. It will not be a house made by human hands. Instead it will be a home in heaven that will last forever.”
Our bodies are temporal, yet human beings have a soul and a spirit that were made to last forever. One day your body is going to die, but that’s not going to be the end of you.
1 Peter 1:4-6 (LB) “God has reserved for His children the priceless gift of eternal life. It’s kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. And God in His mighty power will make sure you get there safely to receive it because you’re trusting Him so be truly glad.”
PRAYER: “Dear Lord, I am so grateful for the grace that You’ve shown me, for the plan that You have for me, for the home that You’ve prepared in heaven, and for the changes You’re making in me. Help me to trust in you for all these things and remind me that you are a rewarder to them that seek after you. Amen.
Until next month,
Pastor Fernando Villicana
Fire Service Chaplain
No information from the author.
