Happy Thanksgiving

Thank God for life!

There! A meadowlark sings! Do you hear it?
For the sigh of the heart,
The contagion of laughter,
For the longing apart,
For the joy that comes after,
For the things that we feel
When we clasp, when we kneel--
Thank God for the sharing,
The caring, the giving,
For the things of Life's living.

Thank God for the riches
Of flowers in the ditches,
For the roof from the weather,
The fireside together,
For the step at the portal,
For the love we have treasured,
For something unmeasured,
For something immortal,
For our grief, for our mirth,
For heavens on earth,
For the things of the Spirit!

There! A meadowlark sings! Do you hear it?

--Douglas Malloch, 1877-1938

 Enter into His gates with Thanksgiving and into His courts with praise.-- Psalm 100:4

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Getting a Better Perspective

In Psalm 55,  King David exclaimed: “Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest” (Psalm 55:6). This wish to be able to put aside all your problems and worries and to feel free is a longing everyone experiences at one time or another. Unfortunately, there is no easy, magical formula to make problems simply disappear. What we can do is learn to control the effect that our problems, both real and imaginary, have on us.

One sure-fire way to strengthen your spirit is to adopt an attitude of praise and thanks to God, even through the rough times. No matter how badly things are going or how seemingly hopeless the situation, it is always possible to find something to be thankful for if you look hard enough—not the least of which is that God stands ready to prove Himself a “very present help in time of trouble” (Psalm 46:1.)

That positive, praiseful attitude will lighten your burdens and help you bear them. It brings on inspiration and renewed strength. It gives you wings to rise above your problems and the doubt, fear, and worry that accompany them. It lifts your spirit above the earthly plane and into the heavenlies. Even though it doesn’t necessarily remove the problems you’re facing, it gives you a much better outlook and perspective on them—a heavenly perspective, infused with faith in the positive outcome God has promised to those who love Him. (See Romans 8:28.)

PSA.18:3  I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies.

PSA.50:23 Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me: and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God.

HAB.3

¹⁷ Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls:

¹⁸ Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.

¹⁹ The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds' feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places.

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Two Religions

One man tells of having this question posed to him time and again: “Now can you say that you have ‘the truth’? There are hundreds of religions in the country, and all of them think that theirs is the only right one. How can I possibly know which of them is the right one?”

The man would answer: “Hundreds of religions, you say? Why that’s strange! I’ve heard of only two!” His listeners would retort, “Oh, but you must know that there are many more than that!” to which he would reply, “Not at all. I will admit that within these two different religions, there are many different sects and differences of opinion. But there are, after all, only two.

“The one religion consists of all those different faiths that believe that they can earn their own salvation by doing good deeds, by being ‘righteous’ and by keeping different kinds of religious laws and commandments. This, as you must realise, comprises most of the faiths of the world. The other religion consists of those who know that they are incapable of saving themselves, and look to the Lord alone to save them!

“So you see, the whole question is really very simple! Do you think you can save yourself, or somehow earn your salvation by being ‘good’?—or do you realise that you need a saviour to rescue you from your sins and mistakes?”

“For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8,9)

“Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us.” (Titus 3:5)

Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. (Gal. 2:6)

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God Works...and That's all you Need to Know

We all use the power of electricity in our everyday lives, even though no one really understands it or where it comes from or how it got here, and certainly none of us has ever seen it, only its effect. In the same way, we must accept the existence of God, even though we don’t fully understand Him or know where He came from! We simply know He does exist and He is here, ever-present, all knowing and all-powerful!

All that most of us know about electricity is, it works! --We flip the switch and make contact with this invisible power and it does the work for us. Just so, we must learn to make contact, personal contact, with the power of God through prayer, a spiritual seeking of contact with His Spirit through obedience to the laws of His Word. We must avail ourselves of God just as we do electricity, and let His light and power into the rooms of our lives to give us light and power and joy in living by doing many things for us that we cannot do for ourselves!

Just reach out your hand of faith and turn the switch of decision, which makes the contact and starts the flow of that power into your life! You don’t have to personally know all the answers. Just flip the switch and it works!

Lk:1:79 To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Jn:8:1 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

Ps:36:9 For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light.

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God's Love Knows No Boundaries

God’s love is so great that it will descend to any depth to save, go to any length to rescue. He can love man in his lowest state and save him in his hour of need from his most pitiful plight. For God there is no stopping place, no limit to which He will not go to save a poor lost soul with His infinite love and mercy. He stoops to the level of our need.

Look at the mercy of Christ: He even went down into the bowels of the earth in order to preach the Gospel of deliverance to the spirits that were in prison there (Matthew 12:40; 1 Peter 3:18-20).
"Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into Heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me" (Psalm 139:7-10).

1PE.3:18-20 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:
By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;
Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.

JER.31:3 The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. MAT.9:36 But when he saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.

ROM.8:38,39 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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