3-16-2016

Good Morning All!!                 

         Psalm 50:23; “The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God!”

    So what is it about giving thanks to God?  When God created man, we were to live in praise and thanksgiving of God and to take care of the creation.  Taking care of the creation makes sense to us; we can imagine Adam with a hoe in his hand and Eve with a basket full of tomatoes or cucumbers or something.  That is something we can visualize and understand but why are we to spend time praising and giving thanks to God?  When we think in our human experience, people who are in constant need of thanks and praise are usually very needy people who often times have poor self-image.  Is that how we view God?  Some sad people do but the reason we are to live in praise and thanksgiving is to strengthen us.  Scriptures show us that living in thanksgiving can really translate for us to live in thanks-living.

    When you live in praise and thanksgiving, you are always remembering the great and wonderful things that God has already given to us.  This keeps our eyes focused on what God has done for us and lets us look at what God is doing for us and what he will do for us tomorrow.  Thanks-living keeps us in the presence of God by keeping his gifts on our mind.  We can look to our hope- that expectation that God will do something good for us in the future- in total confidence. 

    When we are thanks-living we are more likely to live in the peace that God has promised us.  When we live in this thanks-living we are quicker to cast our fears and our anxieties on God.  We don’t have to be worried about anything.  We can look at the greatness of God and recognize that Jesus has overcome this world.  There will be struggles, fears and problems but these will not destroy us.  We can live in peace knowing this.

    Living in thanks-living is part of God’s will and living in God’s will always gives us the contentment and rest that God wants us to have.  Paul tells us to “give thanks in all situations.” This is the crux of why.  We are to focus on what God has done and will do for us.  If the current situation is painful, sad or sorrowful, we live knowing that it will not last and that God goes with us and sustains us through the sorrows to lead us to better days ahead.

    Thanks-living allows us to focus on God and his grace and not on the deception of the world and our sinful nature.  Thanks-living helps us to answer the question the devil asks us “Does God really love you?”  with a resounding “YES!!”  We can take comfort and have our peace in God’s loving sustenance and in his loving arms.

Gracious Father in heaven, we do give you thanks for the grace that you bestow upon us.  You carry us through all valleys and all worries.  Keep us mindful of this so we may always take comfort in this truth.  Let us find our peace in trusting your promise for tomorrow.  Be with those who are in most need of your grace at this time.  Give them the peace that only you can.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret