Over four centuries, or four hundred and three years ago, a little band of men and women joined their hands and hearts in America’s first Thanksgiving. With Indian guests, they gathered around a table for the New World’s first Thanksgiving dinner. Measured by our standards, they did not have much. The harvest was in, and they were grateful to God. But their needs were great, and there were no supermarkets down the street. Cold, hunger, and sickness threatened their very lives.
How far, in some ways, have we come since that first day of thanks in 1621? Today, more than two hundred million people populate our land. We produce more food, fuel and finished products than any nation in the world. Measured by dollars and cents, our gross national product exceeds one trillion dollars and is climbing every year. Science and industry do our bidding. We can even send a man to the moon.
But like the Pilgrims, we have great needs. The richest nation in the world is perplexed and troubled by crucial shortages. Millions are Homeless; forty-five million people go to bed hungry every night. We have higher wages and more dollars, but unemployment lines are long, and the dollar buys less and less all the time. Moreover, we as a nation are over 4.0 trillion dollars in debt.
A greater concern is that our nation appears to stand at a crossroads in its history. The winds of moral and spiritual pollution threaten our future. But, in situations like ours, real thankfulness to God is the first step toward our illnesses being cured. For God is the panacea for all of our problems.
Yes, we should give thanks to God, and I would like to explain why! We should give God thanks because we owe it to Him.
ou see, God is worthy of our thanks because He is our Maker. All that we are and have is from God’s unchanging hand. The strength we have, the things that maintain our lives, the blood and breath within our bodies, and the very time we have here and in eternity to come are a gift of our Creator. He is our Provider and Sustainer. Every necessity of life comes from His hand.
Do you give thanks before eating? Jesus did. Again and again, we read that the Lord lifted his eyes toward heaven and offered thanks before beginning the simplest meal. We should be thankful every day, not just every now and then. We should be thankful for our clothing, our homes, as well as our privileges and freedoms in life. For everything we have or hope to become is a direct gift from God because He loves us.
Yes, we owe thankfulness to God, but there is another reason why we should give thanks to God.
“All The Circumstances of Life are in God’s Hands,” 1st Thessalonians 5:18 commands in everything give thanks. This means in every circumstance and in every situation. Only the child of God can really do this. And if you belong to Christ, this is your privilege. God will make all things work together for good. Everything and every situation is under His control. Times of tears will come, but as we trust and thank Him in “all things,” he will fill our lives to overflowing.
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