Well, it's good to be back here
this evening. I'm so thankful that God was pleased to give
you good service this Sunday and minister to your hearts by
Brother Bob. I look forward to hearing the
tapes. We had good meetings in Jacksonville.
Gary and the folks there send their greetings to you and ask
you to continue to pray for them as they endeavor to serve our
God. I want you tonight to turn with me to Psalm 26. Psalm 26. As is my custom in anticipation
of Thanksgiving Day, I want to preach to you tonight about Thanksgiving.
Actually, I'm not going to do much preaching. I just want to
recall some things in your presence, and I trust God will enable us
to worship Him and turn our hearts to Him in Thanksgiving. I will wash my hands, the psalmist
says in verse 6, I will wash my hands, everything I do with
these hands, every work performed by me, for the glory of God. I'll wash my hands in innocency,
with sincerity of heart. I come to you, my God, I bring
to you my praise, my worship, being washed in the blood of
your darling son, I recognize that these hands can produce
nothing yet for you. So I come to you through the
blood of your son, like the priest would wash his hands in the labor
as he went about his business. I wash my hands now and come
to you. So will I come past thine altar,
O Lord. So will I come and bring my sacrifice
to you. And this is what I'll bring,
that I may publish with the voice of thanksgiving and tell of all
thy wondrous works. I pray that God will enable us
to lift a voice of thanksgiving from our hearts to him. Listen to these words. No, turn
there if you will. Turn to 1 Thessalonians chapter
5. First Thessalonians chapter five, very familiar passage of
scripture. There are certain portions of
scripture that God from time to time has just dropped into
my heart when they were most needed. This is one of them.
I recall well the event. When I was just a young believer,
I wasn't 16 years old, 17 maybe. just after God saved me, going
through some difficulty. At the time, I thought they were
severe. Now I realize they were just slight training. But it
was needed. Look at verse 16. The apostle
says, Rejoice evermore. Rejoice evermore. You who believe
God, rejoice. What a wonderful command. God
commands us to joy. commands us to rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. That's
how you rejoice. When he says pray without ceasing,
he's not talking about measuring the amount of time you spend
in prayer and see if you spend more hours today than you did
yesterday on your knees. He's talking about living before
God with a continual, confident, constant, acknowledged faith
in Him, looking to Him for everything. In everything, give thanks. Oh, God, teach me to be thankful
and to give thanks. The apostle in Hebrews 13 calls
for us to offer the sacrifice of praise, sacrifice of our lips,
the calves of our lips, thanksgiving and praise to God. In everything,
give thanks for this. Now, I've told you many times,
the word for this may be interpreted properly. Either this giving
of thanks or this thing you're going through. Both are true. This is the will of God in Christ
Jesus concerning you. Whatever it is that now is the
circumstance and condition and experience of your heart and
life, my brother, my sister, this is the will of God in Christ
concerning you. And his will concerning you is
good and gracious. Therefore, in everything, give
thanks. Giving thanks to him is his will.
Quench not the Spirit. Oh, take care that you don't
quench the Holy Spirit in your soul. David prayed, take not
thy Holy Spirit from me. Let us take care that we do not
quench the spirit and so quench his influence and his workings
in us. Despise not prophecies. Despise
not the preaching of the gospel. Prove all things. Prove everything
by the word. Hold fast to that which is good.
Abstain from all the spirits of evil. Everything that has
the smell of works and free will, stay away from it. And the very
God of peace sanctify you wholly. I pray God your whole spirit,
soul, and body be preserved blameless under the coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Now listen to this. Faithful
is he that calleth you, who also will do it. He will do all his
will concerning you, he will sanctify you, he will preserve
you, and he will present you blameless at the coming of Christ
before his presence. I want to lead our hearts to
worship our God in Thanksgiving. And now I'm going to do something
a little different for me, a little unusual, because I think it's
very needful. I want to give a brief history
of this blessed holiday. Thanksgiving Day is really the
only holiday on our calendar as a nation that has any real
spiritual significance in its origins. Thanksgiving Day is
a day set aside specifically in its origins at least, no matter
how much it's been perverted. It was set aside specifically
by believers for the worship and praise of God. Every year
at this time it seems like we're just treated everywhere with
articles and news accounts and updates on Thanksgiving which
attempt to prove to us that really Thanksgiving Day is really a
myth as we've thought about it. And in these articles, we're
told that really the pilgrims were not the first people to
celebrate Thanksgiving, and that it has no real religious or spiritual
significance, but was really just a harvest festival. Some
of these things aren't really too serious. After all, I don't
really care whether the pilgrims ate cranberries with their turkey
or whether they didn't. That really doesn't much matter.
But what seems to lie behind some of these things is a desire
to devalue any religious or spiritual or Christian significance with
regard to Thanksgiving. It's such an unfortunate thing. It is true, the pilgrims were
not the first ones to celebrate Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was
celebrated a long time before the pilgrims landed here. Thanksgiving
was celebrated first. by those earliest Americans in
1619. In fact, on December the 4th, 1619, there was a group
of English settlers who arrived in Virginia, and the captain
of the settlement, John Woodleaf, he commanded an observance of
Thanksgiving, and this is what was written in the charter of
the Berkeley Plantation. I want you to listen to it. We
ordain, these were folks who first landed in this land. We
ordain that the day of our ship's arrival at the place assigned
for the plantation in the land of Virginia shall yearly and
perpetually be kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God."
That's how this thing began. In addition to 1619, the colonists
obviously celebrated Thanksgiving, this perpetual day in 1620 and
1621. And then the colony was wiped out in 1622. Modern perverters
of American history, those who want to rewrite history, and
I warn you, if you get a history book that's been written in modern
times, anything that is written in modern times by modern secular
historians is dead wrong. It has been deliberately perverted
so as to eliminate from the conscience of the minds of our youth any
sense of God and his rule over this world, and particularly
over this nation. They would have us to believe
that the pilgrims first came to this land to seek their fortune
in the new world. You remember when they taught
how the pilgrims came to this land? Because of persecution,
seeking liberty, and seeking to establish the kingdom of God.
These days, kids are taught that they came here seeking fortune.
That would have been some news to the pilgrims. William Bradford,
one of their leaders, wrote this in his diary. He wrote it with
regard to the voyage they made here and the motivation behind
it. He said, we were motivated by a great hope for advancing
the kingdom of Jesus Christ. A little bit different than what's
commonly presented. These pilgrims landed at Pilgrim's
Rock, as you know, on December 11th, 1620. And the first winter
was utterly devastating. They were weakened by a long
voyage, many of them because of the circumstances and condition.
Landing, as they did at that time at Plymouth Rock, were destroyed
by pneumonia and consumption. In fact, by the spring of that
first year, forty-six of the first hundred and two were buried. Those hundred and two came across
on Mayflower. But the harvest of 1621 was unbearable.
undescribably great, bountiful. One of the remaining colonists
determined that they would celebrate that bountiful harvest with a
feast, a feast of thanksgiving to God. In an attempt to put
God out of our society and out of our thinking, Educators, the
news media, the entertainment media, vote-seeking politicians
all tell us that Thanksgiving Day really, really was not, it
was not originally a day of thanksgiving to God, but was really just a
celebration because of an abundant harvest. Nothing could be further
from the truth. It was indeed a celebration.
They did celebrate. They weren't They didn't spend
the day in morbid, long-faced religious exercises. They celebrated. They had a huge feast and a huge
party, a huge time of gathering together, not only with the pilgrims
themselves, but also with their neighboring friendly Indians.
But it was a celebration because it was a time of thanksgiving.
Edward Winslow, on December the 11th in 1621, declares that they
celebrated the goodness of God. in providing for them, and declares
that the feast was held so that they might, after a special manner,
rejoice together. That sounds like a Thanksgiving
feast to me. Granted, they did feast. They did feast. I read today,
I can't pronounce the chief's name, so I didn't write it down.
I tried hard, and I thought, well, I'll just mess that up.
But they invited one of the chiefs nearby. He came with 90 of his
braves. And this is the kind of feast
they had. Think you got a big deal coming up Thursday? Listen
to this. They served lobster, goose, turkey,
rabbit, cod, duck, and venison with mustard sauce and all the
trimmings. Berries and pumpkin and hominy. And then the pilgrims. First Thanksgiving day was not
repeated that following year. In the third year, they become
preoccupied, the pilgrims. preoccupied with cultivating
land and building houses and getting property and making money. And they neglected the worship
of God, as they acknowledged. A long, long drought came. Week
after week followed with no rain. There was no recollection, even
among the Indians, of such a long, long drought in that period,
in that space of the country. Finally, in July, Governor Bradford
called for a council, and he called the men of the city together,
the men of the settlement together, and they made a determination
to seek God and to acknowledge their sin. And they met together
in their little block church house, and they began to seek
the Lord. There were some things that had
to be taken care of, acknowledging their pride and their covetousness
and their materialism. and from those things their divisiveness
among themselves. And then they came out of the
church house late in the afternoon and that sky that had been completely
cloudless for months was dark and cloudy. The next morning
it began to rain and it continued to rain gently in great abundance. Listen to how Bradford describes
it. He said the rain came without either wind or thunder or any
violence, and by degrees in great abundance, as that yew earth
was thoroughly wet and soaked therewith, which did so apparently
revive and quicken the decayed corn and other fruits as we get
wonderful to see. and made the Indians astonished
to behold. And afterwards the Lord sent
such great, seasonable showers, which interchange of the fair
and warm weather, as through his blessing caused a fruitful
and liberal harvest, to their no small comfort and rejoicing.
Their harvest that fall was so abundant, they ended up with
a great surplus for the Indians as well. And to everyone's delight,
Governor Bradford set apart a day of thanksgiving, again inviting
the Indian settlers to come with him. And then there was another
day of thanksgiving. In June, 1676, there was a day
proclaimed by the governing council in Charleston, Massachusetts.
And they held a meeting to determine how best they could give thanks
to God. And this was their determination.
They wanted to give thanks and do their best to show their gratitude
to the mercies of God, which they enjoyed, and so that they
might give and offer up their bodies and souls as a living
and acceptable service unto God by Jesus Christ. The first Thanksgiving
they observed during the colonial times was in October of 1777.
All thirteen colonies joined together for the first time.
to celebrate Thanksgiving to God, all 13 of them. George Washington,
I'll just throw in a little tidbit, he was baptized by the Baptist
preacher who was found in First Baptist Church in New York City,
John Gano, a man who believed and preached the gospel of God's
grace. Gano was buried, I believe, over at Frankfort or somewhere
just outside of Frankfort. George Washington proclaimed
the National Day of Thanksgiving in 1789. He called for a day
of prayer. and giving thanks to God. Not
for a day of prayer and giving thanks to your God, whichever
one you choose to worship, but a day of prayer and thanksgiving
to God Almighty. It was to be celebrated by all
religious denominations, but discord among the colonies prevented
that from happening. And then their thanksgiving observance
was just sort of neglected. Thomas Jefferson, sometime later,
who was the deist, infidel, scoffed at the idea of having a day of
giving thanks to God. But there was a woman, a woman
by the name of Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of a magazine, Boston
Ladies Magazine, who kept pressing, writing to senators and congressmen,
writing to senators and congressmen, writing to presidents, urging
them to celebrate a day of thanksgiving every year, to have a national
day of thanksgiving. Finally, after a 40-year campaign,
of writing editorials and letters to governors and presidents and
senators, her passion became a reality. In 1863, President
Lincoln, as you well know, proclaimed the last Thursday in November
to be a day of national thanksgiving, of thanksgiving and praise, as
he put it, to our beneficent father. Well, just exactly what
do you suppose he meant by that? Let me read it to you. It's a
little bit lengthy, but listen carefully. I'll try to put this
in print for you so you can get it and have it for yourself.
Lincoln said, we have been the recipients of the choicest bounties
of heaven. We have been preserved the many
years in peace and prosperity. We've grown in numbers, wealth,
and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we've forgotten
God. We've forgotten, Mr. Lincoln
said, the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied
and enriched and strengthened us. And we have vainly imagined
in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were
produced by some superior wisdom or virtue of our own. How unlike the politicians of
our day, who would have you to believe that all the bounty and
blessings we have are because of some superior wisdom and virtue
we as the American people have. Oh no, oh no. Let me go on Mr. Lincoln's statement. Intoxicated
with unbroken success, we become too self-sufficient to feel the
necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to God
that made us. It behooves us then to humble
ourselves before the offended power of God, to confess our
national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness. April 30th, 1863. President Abraham Lincoln made
this proclamation for Day of National Thanksgiving, fasting,
humiliation, and prayer. Thanksgiving, however, did not
originate with Mr. Lincoln or with the pilgrims
or with those first settlers in this country, but rather God's
people have always been taught of God to give thanks to him.
Back in Leviticus chapter 7, God gave Moses a commandment
to offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving, to bring the sacrifices to him
and to bring them in a specific way. He commands us to give thanks
to him for all his wondrous deeds, his great character, and particularly
for redemption and grace in Christ Jesus. I want you to turn with
me, if you will, to 1 Chronicles chapter 60. First Chronicles 16, I want us
to look at just a few verses there this evening, and I want
by this to inspire our hearts in this matter of thanksgiving.
Verse 8. First Chronicles 16, verse 8. Give thanks unto the Lord for
a simple, simple command. what a commonly neglected privilege. Give thanks unto the Lord. You know me well enough to know
that I have no love for religious formality and ceremony. There are places to Bow your
head and give thanks in places not to make a show. Our Lord
says don't do things in public to make a show. Don't stand on
the street corner and call attention to yourself. I urge you in a
restaurant, don't do like religious people around you so that everybody
see how good and religious you are. That's the purpose. But
rather, always give thanks to God. But now in your home, in
your personal life, In our assembling together as body believers, let
us never, never, never neglect to give thanks to God with purpose
and determination. Thanksgiving is always in season. I don't know how best to teach
our children about prayer and those things. I struggled with
it all the time my daughter was at home. I don't know how best
to teach them. But I know this, it's always
right to teach anybody to give thanks. It's always right for
anybody to bow their head and give thanks to God. Always right
for anybody to seek his mercy and grace and give thanks to
him for his goodness. Doug has told me a number of
times when he was a boy, something he learned from his grandmother,
he said, I was sitting at the table one day and I forgot what
he calls his grandmother, but anyway, she called on him to
ask the blessing on the food. And he started praying and asking
for one thing, then another, and then another, and finally
got around to giving thanks. And she said, now, son, you need
to learn something. God's given you everything you
can possibly ever want or need. Best thing you do is just give
thanks. Would to God we had learned not to seek so much and be thankful
more. Not to want more, but to be thankful
for what he has done and who he is and what he gives. Every
child of Adam living upon this earth ought to lift his heart
to heaven and give thanks to God. The psalmist says, offer
unto God thanksgiving. Pay thy vows to the Most High. It's a good thing to give thanks
to the Lord, to sing praises unto the Most High. Enter into
his gates with thanksgiving. Whenever you come to God, come
to God with a thankful heart. We're allowed to come to God.
We're allowed to worship him. We're allowed to call him our
father. Let us sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving and
declare his works with rejoicing. Hold your hands here and turn
to Colossians 3. Colossians 3. The surest way, the surest way
for you and I to live in this world in the struggles we have
day by day and struggles we will have. When you're passing through
the rivers which he promised would not overflow you, when
you're going through the fire which he promised would not kindle
upon you, the surest way to live in this world in peace is to
lift your heart to God Almighty with thanksgiving. Listen to
this, Colossians 3 verse 16. Let the peace of God rule in
your hearts. to the which you're also called
in one body, and be ye thankful. Verse 17. And whatsoever you
do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving
thanks to God and the Father by him. All right, let's go back
to 1 Chronicles 16. Give thanks unto the Lord. Look
at the next line. Call upon his name. The word
called. You remember back in Genesis
when men began to call on the name of the Lord? The scripture
says, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved. It doesn't mean to call out, though that certainly is
included. It doesn't mean to call for,
though that certainly is included. It means to worship. Call on
his name. Worship his name. To call on
him is to worship him. And the only way you will ever
learn to be thankful to God is to worship him. And I promise
you, David, as you and I worship him, we will be thankful to him.
It is rebellion against him, it is unbelief, and it is stubborn
resisting of his providence that causes us to ever question what
he does and disturbs us as we walk in this world. But as we
worship him, we bow before him and give thanks, understanding
what he does is good. and right and just. Now look
at the next line. Make known his deeds among the
people. How do we give thanks to God? We declare his deeds. We declare
his deeds. The surest way for a man and a woman
to get along at home surest way for them to get along is for
them to speak well to other people constantly about one another.
Find a man coughing about his wife, her coughing about her
husband, they got trouble. But they speak well, not only
to one another, but speak well of one another to others continually. As we walk before God in this
world, we speak well of God to Him. But speak well of him to
everybody. Declare his deeds. He's the creator. He's the ruler of providence.
We'll deal with that in a minute. But speak continually of his
deeds, his wondrous deeds of grace. He chose us. He redeemed us. He called us
by his grace. He keeps us as the apple of his
eye. He feeds us. He clothes us. He
protects us all our days. And look at the next line. sing psalms unto him. Look over in 2 Chronicles for
a minute, chapter 7. I read that and I thought, how
does this fit in this thing? We're being called upon to give
thanks to God, we're being called upon to worship him with thankful
hearts, but what's he talking about? Sing praise to him, sing
psalms to him, psalms of praise to him. Well, there's no better
way to move our hearts to thanksgiving than to sing the praises of our
God. Look here in 2 Chronicles 7 verse
7. The priest waited on their offices,
the Levites also with instruments of music of the Lord, which David
the king had made to praise the Lord. They're waiting before
God in their services. And they were waiting with their
instruments and with the psalms of David, because his mercy endures
forever. Seeing his mercy is constant.
His mercy is persevering. His mercy is never ending. It endures forever. When David
prays by their ministry, and the priest sounded trumpets before
them, look at this, and all Israel stood. They heard the priest and the
Levite singing praise to God and playing their instruments
in praise to God. And the congregation just erupts,
as it were, and stands before God to give thanks to him. All
right, now look back at our text in 1 Chronicles 16. Talk ye of his wondrous works. Children of God promote this
thing of thanksgiving with one another. Word to God, we would
learn ever to speak well of our God to one another, speaking
constantly of his wondrous works. The fact is, all things are of
God, and he does all things well. When we speak of any event, any
act, any blessing, any judgment, any promise, any joy, or any
any bereavement, any heartache. We're talking about God's works.
And we ought to be ever conscious of the fact that they're his
works. Acknowledging them with humble
praise. The Lord is on his throne. Let
us rejoice. The Lord has his way in the whirlwind. Let us then be at peace. Look
at this next line. Glory ye in his holiness. You remember his name? He came
to Moses and Moses said, who shall I say has sent me? And
the Lord God said, you tell him I am, has sent you. His name
is Jehovah, Jehovah Jesus, our savior. Jehovah, the Lord God,
the one who is the only self-sufficient, self-existent being. He who is
that one who says, I am, I was, and I am forevermore. That one
who is the everlasting God. Call upon him and declare his
name, his wondrous works, and glory in his holy name. Let's
see what he means by that. Turn to Jeremiah chapter 9. Jeremiah
9. Verse 23. Glory in his name. Make his name
your glory. Make his name your confidence.
Make his name your trust. Make his name that of which you
boast. Jeremiah 9.23. Thus saith the
Lord. Let not the wise man glory in
his wisdom. God's the one who gave Never
let the mighty man glory in his might. God's the one who gave
that to him. I was sitting in the airport yesterday, waiting
on my next flight, and this fellow came in here, one of these body
worshipers, and he's walking around talking on the telephone,
just pacing back and forth in front of one another. Had on
one of those shirts, shoulder, biceps, he just struck me off.
I thought, shoot, man, I've seen the officer look better than
you. Don't glory in your might. Don't
glory in your wisdom. God's the one who gave it. But
you know, let not the rich man glory in his riches. God's the
one who gave it. God made you poor just quick
so he made you rich quicker. I recall one time years ago,
I had a dear friend sitting in front of me, dealing with 2 Corinthians
4, wealthy man. And I said to him, I know who
you are, but I know some men who work just as hard as you
do, who are just as smart as you are. who labor as faithfully
as you labor. And God's given you to make money
and given that man constant poverty. And the difference is not you,
it's God. You understand that? God's the
one who gives these things. Don't glory in those, but let
him that glorieth glory in this. Oh, now here's something to be
thankful for, to rejoice in, that he understands and knows
me. Oh, now here's something, here's
something. God's given you an understanding
heart and he's revealed to you and in you the knowledge of himself
and his darling son. He understands and knows me,
that is, that I am the Lord. I am indeed God. I am the Lord,
the only one there is which exercise loving kindness and judgment
and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight,
saith the Lord. All right, back in our text again. What's he mean, glory in the
Lord? Glory in his holy name. Read the next line. Let the heart
of them rejoice that seek the Lord. Seeking. Those who seek
him, Wes, know their need of him. They know who he is. And they seek him. They seek
him with all their hearts. They seek him in his word. They
seek him in his house. They seek him continually. And
they find him. Let the heart of them rejoice
that seek the Lord. Years ago I was preaching up
north. One of these fellows had been
deluded for a long time by deep experience preaching. We were
sitting talking over the lunch table. He was teaching Sunday
school church. I asked him a couple of questions
and got a little perplexed. I said to him, do you know the
Lord? He said, well, I'm a seeking sinner. I said, you're a what?
He said, I'm a seeking sinner. I said, what do you mean by that?
He said, well, I'm seeking the Lord. Not saved yet, but I'm seeking
the Lord. I said, how long have you been seeking Him? He said,
I've been seeking Him for 20 years. I said, man, you lie. Just like that, you lie to yourself,
to me, and to God. If you'd been seeking him, you'd
have found him. Seek and you shall find, he says. Now, we
continue seeking him when we found him, but seeking him, we
find him. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say rejoice. Let your
moderation be known to all men. You who speak to him, the Lord's
at hand. He's right here with you. I've been in a few circumstances,
not like some of you, but I've been in a few. When the thing I experienced
broke my heart, I have a situation right now
just breaking my heart. And there's nothing I can do
about it. Nothing I can do about it. Nothing. I'll tell you what
I can do in the midst of a heart breaking trouble. I'm rejoicing
the Lord. He's at hand. He's right here
with me. Nothing's out of control. He's
still on His throne. He's still doing His will. He's
still doing me good. Now then, look down at verse
34. A preacher how on earth can you
urge us with bitterness in our souls, pain in our hearts, trouble in our lands, to give
thanks to God. You take what God says, Oh give
thanks unto the Lord for he is good. He's good. Did you hear that?
He's good. As a matter of fact, the very
name God is but an abbreviated form of the word good. He's good.
The psalmist said, the Lord is good to all. His tender mercies
are over all his works. Praise the Lord for he's good.
Sing praises to him. That's blessed. The prophet Jeremiah
said, it is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for
the salvation of the Lord. And then the prophet Nahum said,
the Lord is good. A stronghold in the day of trouble. Run to this stronghold in the
day of trouble and you'll find him good. And he knows them that
trust in him. Read on. Oh, give thanks unto
the Lord for he is good, for his mercy endures forever. Hear me, children of God. Everything,
everything that falls from heaven upon this earth for you is but
the reigning of mercy. Everything, everything, give
thanks. Now then, turn to 2 Corinthians
if you will. I have many, many things for
which to give thanks. I thank God for you. I thank
God for this church family, for you, my brothers and sisters,
Constantly. I can't express in words how
thankful I am God brought me to this place and brought us
together. I can't express it. I have a wife that loves me,
dotes on me, of course you all know that. My children, grandchildren,
I have so much I don't own a thing. I'm the richest man in the world.
I've got everything a man could possibly want. But here in 2
Corinthians 9 verse 15, is that for which I have reason
to give thanks to God. If tomorrow every man and woman
in this assembly should become my bitter enemy, that dear woman
forsake me and my children be taken from me. Thanks be unto
God for His unspeakable gift. He gave His Son for me. He's
given His Son to me. And He's given me life and faith
in His Son. Now there's just nothing under
heaven and nothing in heaven above to be put in the stable
for that. So I'll send you home as I began and call upon you to publish
the voice of thanksgiving and tell of all God's wondrous works. Make it your business now and
all the days of your life and particularly as you gather with
your family on Thursday to give thanks to God. I say nothing more than happy
Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving. Father, teach
us by your grace to be thankful before you. We have such a horrible, horrible
tendency to murmur and complain. Resist your providence and your
will. have a terrible tendency to look upon our own things, God
forgive us. Teach us to set our hearts upon
Christ and thus ever to give thanks to you. Thanks be unto
God for his unspeakable gift. Amen.