Thankfulness

Over the past couple of days a friend from my high school years and I “bumped into each other” on social media.  Brad and I had not been in contact since 1965.  One of his first comments was “strange world we live in.”  He gets no argument from me.  Indeed, hardly a day passes without some item in the national news - or even local news - that makes a person almost throw up their hands in frustration and confusion

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Indeed, this may be an intensified feeling at this time of the year.  You and I know and feel the uncountable blessings from our loving Heavenly Father.  They fill our lives.  We live in a nation that has enjoyed and still enjoys God’s blessings.  Arguably, we have been blessed as a nation beyond any in history.  Even so, over more recent years our annual national day of thanksgiving has gradually become more focused on things like college football or bargain price shopping than on worshipful thanksgiving

Our friend, the prophet Isaiah, was called to give clear messages to a nation of people who, though richly blessed by God, had turned their hearts and minds in other directions.  There is clear pronouncement of Law in Isaiah, accompanied by equally clear declaration of the resultant recompense to follow.  AT THE SAME TIME, Isaiah also gives the sweet message of forgiveness and salvation to God people, to those who’s hearts and minds and souls are held closely in love by God - but who’s earthly lives were in an environment of dire threat

​Please allow me to share words from Isaiah.  This happens to be one of my wife’s favorite Scripture passages. 

“But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel:    

​“Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.  2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.  3 For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.”
Isaiah 43:1-3

​May your Thanksgiving be filled with the joy of thankfulness for blessings known and unknown.  May the grace of God our Father, the love we have from our Lord Jesus and the peace we know through Faith instilled by the Holy Spirit be the full nourishment of the day – and of every day to come.

+Pastor Rod