Being Thankful

I don't know about you, but there is one thing that really gets under my skin this time of year. I bet that if you turn on your television and watch for a few minutes you will figure out what I'm thinking of. Did you get it? I hope so, but if not, it's the amount of commercials dealing with Christmas offers for cars, jewelry, furniture, and electronics. It seems that every year as soon as Halloween is over, merchants begin shoving these products down our throats. Sadly we live in a society that's all about buy, buy, buy. We have to have the latest car, latest electronic device, and the latest jewelry. I think our society has lost the point of Thanksgiving and Christmas. What happened to being thankful? What happened to spending time with your families? I have never been Black Friday shopping and I hope I never will be subjected to that madness, but I often wonder, what if everyone that was lining up at the crack of dawn on the Friday after Thanksgiving, were that committed to going to church? All those people knocking other people down to get to the latest "hot item," why can't they all be that excited and determined to come through the doors of the church building? So in a world that tells us to be all about material wealth, how should we act?

1. Remember who you are and who's you are. We are all God's. We were created in His image and bought by the blood of His Son Jesus. How often do we really stop and thank God for the sacrifice of His Son? That sacrifice is greater than any material thing we can purchase. It is the gift that will never go out of style.

2. The Bible commands us to be thankful at all times. I often wonder, why we set aside just one day per year to be thankful for all of life's blessings? Shouldn't we be thankful year round? As part of this writing I searched the word "thanksgiving" in the Bible Gateway app and it returned forty results where the word thanksgiving is found in the scriptures. You still think we should only celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday one day per year? I don't think so. One of the verses that I liked the most is found in Psalm 100:4. It says "Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name."

3. Count Your Blessings. I love to sing, I'm horrible at it, but I still like to do it. It pained me to miss the Putnam County Thanksgiving Singing last night as I was dealing with seasonal allergies and was grateful just to get through my sermon at the Mayland church of Christ yesterday morning. One of my many favorite songs is entitled "Count Your Blessings." The song reminds us that "when upon life's billows you are tempest tossed, when you are discouraged thinking all is lost, count your many blessings names them one by one." What we should take from this song is that no matter what we are faced with in life, count your blessings to remind yourself that you are bigger than those problems. As a society today I wish we could get back to this. I challenge you to sit down and write out all the spiritual and material things you are thankful for. Sadly we might have more material things on our list than spiritual things. The joy from material blessings only lasts for a short time, but the spiritual blessings that God gives us will last forever.

Friends, this Thursday and everyday be thankful for the spiritual blessings that you have. We shouldn't just set aside one day in November to "count our blessings." I also challenge those of you that go Black Friday Shopping to ask yourselves, "I'm out here standing in line for this great deal, but would I stand in line to go to church?"

In Him,

Carver Moore

 We would be honored for you to join us for worship at the Chestnut Mound church of Christ.

Our service times are as follows:

Sunday Morning Bible study: 10 am

Sunday morning worship: 11 am

Sunday evening worship: 5 pm