Hello again friends, on this month designated for Thanksgiving.
A husband said to his wife. "Honey, this turkey is wonderful. What kind of stuffing did you use? Wife "Stuffing? I didn't use any stuffing. This turkey wasn't hollow."
I hope that if you had the privilege of sharing a Thanksgiving meal with someone, your experience was a little more positive than the above story.
Setting aside one day in October for Thanksgiving is great, but I feel that our lives year round should be that of thanksliving. It seems in general, that we live in an ungrateful society, even though "thank you' is one of the first phrases we teach our children. As I pondered over why we seem so ungrateful, at least three reasons came to mind.
- We are discontented with our lot in life. Someone else always seems to have it better.
- We are self-sufficient; taking personal credit for all we have achieved and accumulated, through hard work and determination.
- I believe the greatest reason for unthankfulness is that we don't take God into the equation.
Every breath we breath is a gift from Him, but He doesn't seem to get credit for His hand in our lives. When Paul, one of the writers of the New Testament, wrote about man's gradual demise in Romans 1, this is how he describes the process. "For the truth about God is known to them instinctively, God has put His knowledge in their hearts. From the time the world was created people have seen the earth and the sky and all that God made. They can clearly see His invisible qualities. So they have no excuse whatsoever for not knowing God. Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn't worship Him as God or even give thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. The result was that their minds became dark and confused." Then Paul describes how people start worshipping the things that God created instead of God as Creator. The results were very disastrous.
It would be very hard to thank God for the gracious gift of His Son, for forgiveness of sin, eternal life and daily blessings, without acknowledging God for who He is.
Why don't you come and worship and thank Him with us on Sundays?
With Thank to Awesome God
Pastor John Giesbrecht
