TOUCHED WITH A THANKFUL HEART
Touched with a Thankful Heart
This Thursday is T-DAY, which is Thanksgiving! According to a survey conducted in 2023, eighty-three percent of Americans said that they will celebrate Thanksgiving this year. Thanksgiving is featured as one of the leading holidays in the United States ever since it became a national holiday in 1862. Annually it arrives on the fourth Thursday of November.
Family and friends generally come together for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner to be grateful for God, and His goodness and grace in our lives. A traditional Thanksgiving meal in the United States typically tables a roast turkey, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes with gravy, bread stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet corn, vegetables of the season, bread rolls with butter, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream for dessert. As a boy born and raised in Georgia, my palate points me to some southern selections not mentioned above.
Growing up we had fried turkey, ham, pigs feet, collard greens, green bean casserole, sweet potato pie, pecan pie, and wonderfully washed down with some sweet tea or lemonade. Now I will transition from our stomachs to our souls.
Are you aware that thankfulness is a transcending theme in the Word of God?
2 Samuel 22:50 Therefore I will give thanks unto thee, O LORD, among the heathen, And I will sing praises unto thy name.
Psalm 30:4 Sing unto the LORD, O ye saints of his, And give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness.
Psalms 92:1 It is a good thing to give thanks unto the LORD, And to sing praises unto thy name, O most High:
1 Corinthians 15:57 But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
2 Corinthians 2:14 Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.
Ephesians 5:20 giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
1 Thessalonians 5:18 In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
All the passages point to the fact that thankfulness should be a personal and persistent pathway of our lives. It should purely pour abundantly from our hearts, and spill out from our speech.
Energetic excavation into the Word of God will reward us a great grip as to why we should be thankful, and also express thankfulness in a plethora of life spaces.
Psalm 136:1 O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth forever.
“...for his mercy endureth forever.” This passage is recorded verbatim at least four additional times in scripture. (Psalms 106:1, 107:1, 118:1, 29).
Now let’s embrace a couple of explanations as to why we should be thankful from Psalm 136:1. First, we should be thankful for God’s continuous goodness and His inexhaustible reservoir of mercy and love. Second, when we comprehend the considerable degree of depravity embedded in our nature, and recognize our enormous expanse of separation from God which drops us in death; (Romans 6:23 Romans 7:5) our expected reaction is to be tremendously thankful for the life He gives.
Thankful for the Gift that keeps on Giving!
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!
Not a sermon just some thoughts.