Things that Are Unchangeable
There are certain things that are
today for everyone in general and for everyone specifically.
Things that ‘are’ for everyone are
planetary locations and rotations, star location, seasons, time, place, and
space. It is a particular day, week,
month, year, and season of the year.
There are certain laws that are in effect. The law of gravity is a well-known law. If you jump off a cliff, you will fall to the
bottom of the cliff and probably kill yourself.
Who can argue with that?
Things that ‘are’ include physical
needs. People need food, water, and
shelter from the elements to survive.
Individuals are living in a certain
place, surviving by specific means, are a particular gender, heights, size,
skin color, age, with a particular level of health.
Measurements are what they are,
whether you are measuring time or distance or square feet.
Now, what happens when someone decides
that things that ‘are’ ‘are not’? I mean, if you are measuring time and decide
that Christmas is on a Tuesday when it is really on a Monday, will your holiday
plans turn out ok?
Or, if someone living in Fairbanks,
Alaska, decides it is July when it is December, and dresses accordingly, will
they avoid the frostbite the comes to exposed skin in December in Fairbanks?
If someone who is a size 12 decides to
buy clothes that are a size 8, will the clothes fit?
If an architect decides a foot is 10
inches rather than 12 inches, will a 2000 square foot home really have 2000
square feet?
It doesn’t work does it? Things that are just are. That is the way it is and we cannot change
it. It is called the truth. And, if anyone has a misconception of the
truth of time, distance, measurement, necessities, and so on, they are setting
themselves up for a BIG fall.
Something else that is an unchangeable
fact is the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is the truth that saves. It tells the
truth by which man can be saved from hell and obtain heaven. If it is diluted
to the wisdom of man, then it is not the truth that has power to save.
Join the task force of true Believes
who earnestly contend for the faith.
Take the true Gospel to the lost.
A watered down social gospel has no power to save anyone from
anything. A lesser gospel is sort of
like taking rainwater to a sick person and telling them it has the nutritional
and healthful benefits of chicken soup.
Even if you throw in a couple of tablespoons of real chicken soup, it
will be rainwater. It also will not have
any benefits to the health or recovery of the sick person.
It is also an unchangeable fact that
in order for a Christian to have a faith that is strong enough for the journey,
they must be firmly grounded in Bible teachings and truth. A strengthening
truth from the Bible is that God deserves our thankfulness, and that
thankfulness to God benefits the believer as well.
It is an unchangeable fact that
something crucial to the well-being of Christians is thanksgiving. God deserves our thanks. It is wrong to with-hold thanks when it is
deserved. As usual, God gives more than
He gets.
Thanksgiving DOES have benefits for
you personally. God takes notice of
obedience in His children. A moment of
sincere thanks to God will most certainly bless you. The world tends to look at ‘blessings’ as
mountains of material wealth. This is
not the case with believers. Honestly,
the material blessings are wonderful.
However, they do become secondary to other blessings like life, the
honest love of family and friends, liberty, freedom of worship, and freedom to
follow the dreams that God puts in your heart.
Still, Christians are not to make light of material blessings like a
nice wood burning stove on a cold day, a roof that doesn’t leak during a rain
storm, or that really neat new refrigerator that makes shaved ice when you hit
the right button. (No, I don’t have such
a refrigerator, but I want one. Of
course first I need a house to put it in, but I still want one.) Specific Thanksgiving to God Almighty for His
wonderful blessings to mankind and to you personally brings you closer to
God. The closer to God you are the
better your life will be.
We are approaching the end of
2011. Thanksgiving is just on the
horizon, and then comes the most famous holiday of them all. For Christians
Christmas should be a time of even more thanksgiving. Honestly, I like to start celebrating Christmas
on Thanksgiving Day, or a week or two before.
Get into the mood of thanksgiving and let that be your constant thought
through the rest of the year. It is sort
of a time of rest from worries.
Thanksgiving to God Almighty has the power to give you rest from
whatever worries you have. A very common
worry from now until the end of the year is money. How are you going to pay for all that holiday
cheer? Meals, travel, present, and even
charitable giving all adds up to a lot of extra money. If you don’t have extra money during the rest
of the year, why would you have extra money for the holiday season which
includes Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year?
This time of year is either the time to cave into social pressure to spend spend
spend, OR become scrooge like, OR become more thankful. In becoming more thankful, the other problems
do two things. First they go from being most important down to being far less
important. Sometimes unexpected
solutions present themselves. Whatever
happens you are far better off being thankful than you are worrying about how
to get it all done.
Also, to all my readers, I know some
of you aren’t really worried about Christmas presents and expenses. You are worried about having no job, and how
you are going to pay your electric bill in the dead of winter. I prayed for you just now. I ask all other readers to take a minute
right now to pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ who are hurting
financially right now. Also pray for
those who have suffered loss this year such as death of a family member, an
unwanted divorce, and other such terrible losses. And, for the brethren who are without even
personal safety, much less a constant way to provide for their families. God help each of you, and God give each of us
the means and a generous heart to help those we meet who are in need. I want to speak to both those who have suffered terribly this year as
well as to those who have prospered spiritually and materially in this
article. Thanksgiving is the help for
everyone, regardless of circumstances. But,
let me speak to those going through rough times just a moment. An example of thanksgiving in dire
circumstances is given to us by the Pilgrims who first came to what would
become the United States of America.
During their first year, the Pilgrims suffered approximately 50%
casualties. HALF their number died! Yet when the opportunity came they offered a
huge thanksgiving to God for His goodness to them. The legacy left by their behavior rocked the
world. So, if you are in dire
circumstances, the most effective thing you can do is sincerely thank God for
the daily benefits He gives to you. If
things seem to be going your way now, it is an equally good time to give
thanks.
In the Bible we are told five times of
the ‘sacrifice of thanksgiving’. I think
the more dreadful the circumstances the people are facing, the more
thanksgiving is a sacrifice. They have
to take their thoughts off their problems, or sacrifice the sorrow’s first
place in their thoughts, and give thanks to God first place in thoughts. I
suppose even sorrow or trials could be a taken as a ‘god before God’ if the
trials are getting first place in the believer’s life. The Pilgrims were certainly an example of a
sacrificial time of thanks. But in the
thanksgiving there is rest from which it is hard to turn away. When you stop thanking God, you have to face
the trials alone. Always remember that
while you are thanking God, God is working on solutions for you. Also remember that among all our worldly
goods, though they be great, no one has anything worthy of an offering to
God. Thanking God for His goodness to us
is the way to express our thanks properly, AND rest from our sorrow and trials,
AND give God the authority to work out
our difficulties on our behalf.
Take the time to go to a web site like
biblegateway and look up thanks, thanksgiving, thankful and read the
verses. Believers are called upon to be
thankful in all circumstances. I don’t
think we are supposed to be thankful when tragedy or hard times strike, but
rather to be thankful for the goodness of God that continues through whatever
circumstances we are facing.
The best way to prepare for the coming
season of holidays including Thanksgiving and Christmas is to pay strict
attention to thankfulness to God. The
best way face the rest of your life is to set a pattern of thanksgiving in all
seasons in all circumstances.
If you are in a dire set of
circumstances, faith in God’s ability and willingness to fulfill his promises
to His children is the beginning of change.
Have faith. God is righteous, and
God loves His children. Give
thanks. It takes a lot of faith and
determination to set aside sorrows and thank God that His word is true and that
He will do all that He has promised.
(Remember that little song ‘Every Promise in the Book is Mine’? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-lqYLoBZqI
)
If you are in good circumstances now
and living the life of which you always dreamed, remember that it is God who
has blessed you. Give thanks.
I have two songs for this article
because thanksgiving seems to be accompanied by music.
The first is Amazing Grace because it
is a ballad that tells the story of conversion, life, and heaven. Memorize all the verses. There is no song like it all creation. The verse that says, ‘The Lord has promised
good to me – His word my hope assures’ – explains the reason we have courage to
give thanks in the midst of trials. The
Lord promises us good. His thoughts
toward us are good. We can’t see the big
picture most of the time – but that does not change what the true picture
really is. God had promised good to me
personally – and to you personally as well.
Give thanks.
The second song is ‘Faith is the
Victory’. Hebrews chapter 11 tells of
faithful acts of the saints of ages past.
For the individual Christian to take his/her focus off their troubles
and focus on giving thanks requires great faith and determination. God has not changed. He still takes note of those who go forward
by faith, seeing the greatness and power of God instead of the impossibility of
their tasks. By faith, set aside your
distractions whether they be good or bad, and make thanksgiving a constant and
continual part of your daily thoughts and routine. Faith and thankfulness are first and foremost
an attitude of the heart. A right
attitude has its roots in thanksgiving and faith. I wish to all of you a blessed time from now
through the rest or the year. I thank
God for believers around the world, and pray for His the continued blessings of
His help to each of us.
Faith
is the Victory
Encamped along the hills of light,
Ye Christian soldiers, rise.
And press the battle ere the night
Shall veil the glowing skies.
Against the foe in vales below
Let all our strength be hurled.
Faith is the victory, we know,
That overcomes the world.
Refrain
Faith is the victory! Faith is the
victory!
O glorious victory, that overcomes the world.
His banner over us is love,
Our sword the Word of God.
We tread the road the saints above
With shouts of triumph trod.
By faith, they like a whirlwind’s breath,
Swept on o’er every field.
The faith by which they conquered death
Is still our shining shield.
Refrain
On every hand the foe we find
Drawn up in dread array.
Let tents of ease be left behind,
And onward to the fray.
Salvation’s helmet on each head,
With truth all girt about,
The earth shall tremble ’neath our tread,
And echo with our shout.
Refrain
To him that overcomes the foe,
White raiment shall be giv’n.
Before the angels he shall know
His name confessed in Heav’n.
Then onward from the hill of light,
Our hearts with love aflame,
We’ll vanquish all the hosts of night,
In Jesus’ conqu’ring Name.
Refrain
Amazing Grace
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.
’Twas grace that taught my heart to
fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed!
Through many dangers, toils and
snares,
I have already come;
’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
The Lord has promised good to me,
His Word my hope secures;
He will my Shield and Portion be,
As long as life endures.
Yea, when this flesh and heart shall
fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.
The earth shall soon dissolve like
snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who called me here below,
Will be forever mine.
When we’ve been there ten thousand
years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’d first begun.
