Tag: scripture

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Being Thankful

You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;
You have loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness,
That my soul may sing praise to You and not be silent
O LORD my God, I will give thanks to You forever.

Psalm 30:11-12

I usually don’t do “what I’m thankful for” because I find it a bit cheesy, and what is there to say except what my scripture selection says? However, I wrote up some good ones this year.

  1. I am thankful for the grace of God and the blood of Jesus. Compared to how thankful I am for these, I am not thankful for anything else.
  2. My husband, Jerrod. He’s the best husband I could imagine and I can’t imagine having gone through what we have in the past couple years without him. Living with my grandparents, his help when they were sick, the time Papa fell outside and Gramma and I couldn’t help him up – I just don’t know what I would have done if I had been with them alone. And his support when Papa was in the hospital and when he passed away… I just can’t think of the words for how thankful I am.
  3. I give thanks to God for the new little baby girl we are expecting. I feel like I can already tell some of her personality.
  4. I am especially thankful this year for something a little unusual – That God caused Jerrod and I to move back in with my grandparents. I did not know then that I would be spending Papa’s last year with him. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.
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Thanksgiving 2008

In 1621 Governor William Bradford declared that the settlement have a thanksgiving feast to give thanks to God for the harvest. Wanting to invite their Indian friends, they sent an invitation to Chief Massasoit.

The pilgrim men hunted and fished in preparation for the feast. In a day they had plenty of game including wild turkeys. When the Indians arrived the pilgrims were surprised to find that ninety braves had come. Fortunately the Indians were used to celebrating the harvest. They hunted and contributed five deer and more seafood to the feast.

Before eating, the pilgrims prayed praising God and thanking Him for his blessings. The feast lasted for three days and included games that the pilgrims and Indians shared together.

In their first year in the new world the Mayflower passengers survived, but now they were thriving. It was not without hardship, Plymouth had lost fifty percent of their people, but Jamestown in Virginia lost ninety percent.

I am thankful for the wisdom and sacrifices made by our ancestors. In his history, Of Plimoth Plantation, William Bradford said “a great hope and inward zeal they had of laying some good foundation (or at least to make some way therunto) for the propagating and advancing the gospel of the kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of the world; Yea, though they should be but even as stepping stones, unto others for the performing of so great a work.”

This year I would like to express an extra thanks for my favorite grandfather through whom I am descended from William Bradford and William Brewster. In the example of his forefathers, he trusted God and took his family to a new place where they began our church and have shown Christ to everyone they meet.

Thanksgiving is not only a part of our American heritage, but our Christian heritage as well. We were being instructed to give thanks long before 1621.

“Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

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A Thrill

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:5-11

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:14

I get such a thrill when I read this scripture. Just think of it; God becoming a person like us, being born a human, becoming flesh. As Christians, the focus is often on the death and resurrection of Christ, and that was the whole plan, but it is impossible to separate those miracles from the miracle of the Incarnation. It’s one big story, and this is a very exciting part of it!

Merry Christmas!

also posted at http://prettygeek.com

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Marriage

Just a reminder. This was taken from Easton’s Bible Dictionary.

Our Lord corrected many false notions then existing on the subject of marriage (Matt. 22:23-30), and placed it as a divine institution on the highest grounds. The apostles state clearly and enforce the nuptial duties of husband and wife (Eph. 5:22-33; Col. 3:18, 19; 1 Pet. 3:1-7). Marriage is said to be “honourable” (Heb. 13:4), and the prohibition of it is noted as one of the marks of degenerate times (1 Tim. 4:3). The marriage relation is used to represent the union between God and his people (Isa. 54:5; Jer. 3:1-14; Hos. 2:9, 20). In the New Testament the same figure is employed in representing the love of Christ to his saints (Eph. 5:25-27). The Church of the redeemed is the “Bride, the Lamb’s wife” (Rev. 19:7-9).