God commands His children to always have an attitude of gratitude!

“in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18)

“Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4)

Are you rejoicing always?

For many, Thanksgiving has become just a “Turkey Day,” a day to throw our diets into the wastebasket, engage in a ritual of overeating, & watch football until we’re fast asleep. But for Christians, Thanksgiving is a day to acknowledge that everything we have is a gift from God, & to lift our hearts in thanksgiving to Him. Thanksgiving is a time for us to step back and to consider how good we really have it.

We need to be reminded to focus on giving God thanks because our society presents two very real threats to thanksgiving:

1) First: We live in a very negative age-just read the papers, listen to radio, and TV and to people around you.  Our society and media thrives on it.

2) Secondly: We live in a very prosperous society-instead of thanking God for what we have we want more and are never satisfied.

Three Problems in Contemporary Christianity:

1) We are too busy to worship — can’t quiet our hearts before the Lord. We have more leisure time but it is so crammed with leisure activities that we have less leisure for quiet meditation.

2) We view God too much on a buddy-buddy basis and have lost a vision for His majesty and His greatness. Yes, Jesus is a friend of sinners, but He is also the Master of the Universe.

3) We are too emotionally inhibited and sophisticated to praise God the way we should. Especially to give thanks to God for His abundant goodness.

Prayer Power
Heavenly Father, as we look around us at the land of plenty that we live in, may we see through new eyes each day the ways that You have blessed us and never take You or those blessings for granted. May we be thankful when we don’t know something because this gives us the opportunity to learn. May we be thankful for the difficult times because we grow during those times. May we be thankful for our limitations, because they give us opportunities for improvement. May we be thankful for our mistakes because they will teach us valuable lessons. May we be thankful when we’re tired and weary, because it means we’ve made a difference. In Jesus name, we pray. Amen.

Link of the Day
The History of Thanksgiving – by The Federalist (1998) [http://forums.somd.com/showthread.php?t=37306]

Blessings for a God-centered Thanksgiving!

Your Daily Blessing News
Most of today’s message comes from part of an email I received from Zee Andrusyshyn, Director of the Greater Tampa Bay FCA.