This is from my good friend Jeanette:
May God bless you and yours this Thanksgiving
Count your blessings
instead of your crosses.
Count your gains instead
of your losses.
Count your joys instead of
your woes.
Count your friends instead
of your foes.
Count your smiles instead
of your tears.
Count your courage instead
of your fears.
Count your full years
instead of your lean.
Count your kind deeds
instead of your mean.
Count your health instead
of your wealth.
Count on God instead of
yourself.
A Thanksgiving Message
by Jack Kelley
Shout for joy to the
LORD, all the earth. Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with
joyful songs. Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his
courts with praise; give thanks
to him and praise his name. For the LORD is good and his love
endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations. (Psalm 100)
Each year on the 4th
Thursday of November we celebrate Thanksgiving Day in the US. It’s a
holiday begun by the early settlers to express their gratitude to God for a
bountiful harvest, and it’s patterned
after the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles.
After the harvest,
Israelites from all over the country would gather in Jerusalem for a week long
celebration. This was to commemorate the time God had spent with them in the
wilderness and to give thanks for another good harvest. All year they saved up
their tithes, the first born of their flocks and herds, the first sheaves of
grain, the first grapes, figs, olives and other fruit and vegetables and
brought it all to Jerusalem in the fall where they cooked and ate everything in
a national celebration of praise (Deut.
12:5-7).
After surviving a very
difficult year in the new world, the Pilgrims of New England instituted a
similar, though much smaller, thanksgiving feast, again with the intent of
praising God. This
event finally became a national holiday in the US in 1863, but it took until
1941 to settle on the 4th Thursday of November as its official observance.
My parents made sure we
never forgot that it was the Lord who provided for us and so Thanksgiving was a
religious observance in our house. Prayers were offered and each family member gave thanks
to the Lord for all the good things we had received.
You may say to yourself,
“My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for
me.” But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the
ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your
forefathers, as it is today (Deut. 8:17-18).
We believed, as the
Bible tells us, that even though my parents worked hard all year, it was the
Lord who had given them their strength and ability and created opportunities
for them. In these verses God reminded the Israelites (and us) not to forget
that. After all, lots of people work hard all their lives and never seem
to get anywhere. We weren’t well off, but we gave thanks for what
we had because we knew where our blessings came from.
As an adult I got
involved in the self-development field and began learning about the “god
within”, an internal force I was told I could use to maximize my “creative
potential” for success. This appealed to my ego and made me seem like the
master of my own fate. I forgot all about the Lord’s admonition to remember Him.
When I was born again at age 40 I finally saw that this “god within” was only
my own self determination. It was really the “God without” who had been
blessing me all along even though I was taking all the credit. In one of
my first prayers for forgiveness, I asked the Lord to forgive me for giving
myself credit for things that were gifts from Him. As I was praying about this,
the phrase “God Without” kept repeating itself in my mind. What was the Lord
trying to tell me?
I believe He was saying
that the word “without” applies to lots of things where He is concerned, and as
I continued to pray several of them came to mind.
If you’re looking for
things to be thankful for (even if you live in a country where Thanksgiving
isn’t celebrated) try some of these “withouts” the Lord brought to my
mind. I’m sure He will bring even more to yours as you focus on them.
Love Without
Limits … For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son,
that whoever believed in Him would not perish but have everlasting life(John 3:16).
Forgiveness
Without Question … Ask and you
will receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to
you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds, and to him who
knocks the door will be opened (Matt 7:7-8). If we confess our sins, he is faithful and
just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)
Performance
Without Exception … All that the
Father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me I will never drive
away. And this is the will of Him Who sent me, that I shall lose none of all
that He has given me, but raise them up on the last day (John 6:37, 39).
Promise Without
Equivocation … I make known
the end from the beginning, from ancient times what is still to come. I say,
“My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please … what I have said,
that will I bring about and what I have planned, that will I do” (Isaiah 46:10-11).
Blessings Without
Number … You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country (wherever
you are). The fruit of your womb will be blessed (your
children), and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock-the
calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks (your work). Your
basket and your kneading trough will be blessed (you’ll have plenty of
food). You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out (when
you come home at night and when you leave in the morning) (Deut 28:3-6).
Mercy Without
Measure …. It is because
of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassion fails
not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness (Lamentations 3:22-23).
Faithfulness
Without Failing … Know therefore
that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of
love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands (Deut. 7:9). And we know that
in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been
called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28).
Redemption Without
Retraction … “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and
believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has
crossed over from death to life (John 5:24). For my
Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall
have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day” (John 6:40).
Salvation Without
Merit … But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he
saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his
mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy
Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so
that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope
of eternal life (Titus 3:4-7).
Grace Without
Guilt … Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old
has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself
through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was
reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against
them. (2 Corinthians 5:17-19)
So in a time when
mankind has all but forgotten that the Lord is the Giver of every good and
perfect gift, the Author of all our victories, who arranges every opportunity
and fashions every blessing, these “withouts” might serve as good reminders to
give thanks where thanks is due.
And now may “The
LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face shine upon you and be
gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26) Happy Thanksgiving from Your Watchman on the
Wall, Al
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