BEING THANKFUL

Aloha family and friends,   Beautiful day here in Kealia, HI,   A little after 8 AM,  Sun shinning brightly and almost 70 degrees,  very comfortable.  Really a privilege to be alive and to enjoy each day’s possibilities. 

It is interesting in the Bible how that humility and being thankful walk hand in hand.  In Luke’s gospel Jesus teaches us to love our enemies that GOD’S nature is to be kind to the unthankful as well as to the evil.

But with Paul he instructs Timothy for the last days:    This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.² For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,³ Without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,⁴ Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;⁵ Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.  2 Tim.3:1-5

So in seeking a context between these teachings it would seem that God wants us to be Thankful but has given us a time of Grace to learn how to become Thankful.   Pride tends to make us feel that we deserve what we have or get and in fact that we deserve more so that nothing that comes our way are we truly thankful.  Pride tends to make us feel very deserving and un-appreciatied.   I know of a young man who felt that he got left out of an inheritance.  His grandparents and parents died and left him nothing as they really had nothing.  But his whole life has been lived in feeling that he deserved more from them.  So nothing that has came his way ever measured up to what he felt he had deserved and lost.  So all of the potentials for good in his life have been lost.  Rom.1:21

Actually, when we go to the Holy Bible to find GOD’S TRUTH it becomes obvious that we all,  due to sin, deserve to be cast into hell.  That “The wages of sin is death” and “The soul that sins shall die.”  But that the GIFT of GOD is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.  So basically, if we believe this, our first feelings should be to be Thankful that the Heavenly Father loves us and has made a way for us to join with HIM for eternity.  That we are to learn how to allow God to rule in our hearts, to be at peace and to be thankful in humility,  Col.3:15.    Being Thankful indicates a loving humility in acknowledging that we needed something that someone else has provided. 

With the Pilgrim Fathers of this Country it was in being thankful for finding land and the opportunity for the freedom of religion.  The freedom of having family and thought without oppression.  So today, we all have much to be Thankful for beginning with the possibility of salvation and freedom in Christ Jesus.   So as the turkey heads your way, take a moment and count your many many blessings.

But please don’t blame God for any of the bad choices you may have made in life with that freedom that we so deeply enjoy from God and should be thankful for.  We have been endowed with a wonderful free will that needs a massive amount of Godly training.

Yours, in HIS great love and wonderful grace and mercy,  Ken<><   www.Trinity-Aloha.org