Happy Thanks-for-Giving Day!

Instead of posting a Thanksgiving message of my own, I decided to post the article from my wife's Myspace blog:

Happy Thanks-For-Giving Day!

by Diana Kelley

If you have ever heard my 7 year old, Cordell, speak of Thanksgiving, you'd notice that he pronounces it, "Thanks-for-giving". We didn't teach him that, it is just how he has always said it. I do not correct him on it, though, because thinking about it, maybe he is the one that is right.

As we all should know, Thanksgiving day is in remembrance of the day the Pilgrims, joined by the Native Americans, gave a feast of thanks and praise to God for His blessings, provision, and protection. You see, the Pilgrims came to America from England to start a new life free from the persecution of godless people. They were in search of freedom of religion. (Many of the people who sailed to North America followed the teachings of the Reformers and tried to live by the Bible.)

No, we are not Pilgrims, having to set sail to another country in search of religious freedom. No, we are not persecuted, or made to worship in any certain way, or made to own any certain Bible version. We cannot know exactly what they went through, but we can share in their spirit of giving thanks unto God.

The Bible tells us that ALL things were created by God.(1) Do you enjoy oxygen to breath or food to eat? Laughter, family, the beach, or the night sky? Yep, it was all created by Him who also made us. Thank Him for those things this Thanksgiving day.

If you are born again, we have even greater reasons to be thankful... because God has chosen us, from the beginning, for salvation.(2) Wow! That truely is something to be thankful about. Salvation and ALL the benefits that come with it. They are too numerous to count.

To sum it up, we can all be thankful this "Thanks-for-giving" day. Thanks to God for giving His many blessings, provision, and protection. Thanks to God for giving us His Son, to provide us with salvation. And thank you, Cordell, for altering my vocabulary.

(1)Colossians1:16,17.
For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

(2) 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14. But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 15:57. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.