Living with Thanksgiving

"If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, 'thank you,' that would suffice." ~ Meister Eckhart
 

Once again the holiday season is upon us. The stores are filled with Christmas decorations, children are wondering what they will find under the tree, and Mom and Dad are wondering how they will pay for it. These days Thanksgiving is basically a pre-season holiday, something you do to get in shape for Christmas. We eat, we sleep, we watch football, and we don’t stop until January.

That’s a shame because the art of giving thanks is one thing that separates man from the animals. To receive a gift and say, “Thank you,” is one of the noblest things a man can do. There is nothing small or trivial about it.

To say “Thank you” is to acknowledge that we have been given something we did not earn and do not deserve. Happy is the man who understands that all of life is a gift of God and that life itself is the ultimate gift. Which is why the Bible says, “In everything give thanks” (I Thessalonians 5:18). When we can’t do anything else, we can always be grateful. As someone has said, “If you can’t be thankful for what you have received, be thankful for what you have escaped.”

As Americans, our hearts should continually overflow with thanksgiving. Author and Bible teacher Beth Moore, in her DVD study series on the Book of Daniel, acutely captured what it means to be "rich" when she contrasted resources and education in America with the rest of the world. She said that if a person has the resources to buy a book and the education to read it then that person is rich compared to 80 percent of the world who live in extreme poverty with no access to books or the ability to read them. That is a staggering thought as I own hundreds of books and have read thousands since I first learned how to read in first grade.

But as Christians, our thanksgiving should never cease because of the One who gave everything for us. We understand that happiness does not "consist in the substance of things possessed" ... but by "every word that proceeds from the mouth of God."

And this really is the key to sustained happiness and thanksgiving - a relationship with the Living God. While we need to be thankful for the material things we possess and our family our friends - true thanksgiving flows from a heart knitted together with the God of the universe.

The Apostle Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans that "while we yet sinners, Christ died for us" and that "whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." This is the greatest love story ever told - the God of the heavens becoming a man, suffering and dying on the cross of Calvary to pay for men's sins and then rising on the third day. For those that put their faith in Him and His sacrifice for sin, He promises that they too will rise one day from the grave as He did.

When one begins a relationship with Jesus Christ, God takes out his stony heart and replaces it with a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26 ). The happiness that results from this miracle of God does not fade when life takes a sharp turn and leaves us homeless, jobless, or parentless. No, this joy is rooted in a God who promises His followers "a future and a hope." A God who tenderly whispers that "He will never leave us or forsake us." And a God that comforts us with the reality that "all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose." 

This Thanksgiving season, let's do what the psalmist says in Psalm 100 and "enter into His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise." There is much to be thankful for and a God who awaits our presence.

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"Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed.  Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude." ~ D. Waitley 

Considering the Literary Brilliance of the Bible

I have always been a lover of literature since I was a child and consider myself a lifelong student of the English language. Two years ago I took a Bible course called Hermeneutics, which is a fancy name that simply means the study of interpretation theory. In this case, it was the study of how to interpret the Bible. I found the course fascinating because it broke down the Bible into several categories that needed to be considered when approaching the interpretation of any portion of Scripture. These categories included the text’s historical setting, geographic location, cultural aspects and its use of linguistics. It is this last category that I wanted to spend some time discussing.

It is an amazing thing to consider that the Bible, written over a period of fifteen hundred years, has a common theme - the redemption of sinful man by a gracious and loving God. Approximately forty men, from Moses to the Apostle John were Bible writers from circa 1500 BC to 100 AD.

The Bible is what one person has called a "linguistic incarnation" as it is 100% the word of man and 100% the word of God, as God used men to write down His thoughts in the same way a businessman uses a secretary. He allowed them to put these thoughts in their own words, but the men themselves were inspired (2 Peter 1:20-21). The authors differed in many ways. Some were Pharisees, including the Apostle Paul. Others were fishermen, such as Peter and John. Matthew was a tax collector. David was the King of Israel. Amos was a shepherd from Judah. Although their backgrounds and occupations were vastly different, God used these men to accomplish his will as each one used their life experience and individual talents to pen their respective books.

It may surprise you to know that the Bible contains 8,000 figures of speech! A figure of speech is simply a word or a sentence thrown into a peculiar form, different from its original or simplest meaning or use. If we say "It is raining hard," we are using a normal, plain statement. But if we say, "It is raining cats and dogs," we have used a sentence that means the same thing but is a more unusual or colorful way of expressing the same thought. The Bible is filled with metaphors, similes and other figures of speech to convey God’s message to its readers in a palatable and memorable way.

The Bible also employs several genres or literary writing styles, including narratives, legal writings, poetry, wisdom literature, gospel writings, epistolary (letters), and prophetic literature.

The Book of Psalms, often called the hymn book of the Bible, is its most poetic. William E. Gladstone, who was prime minister of England during the 18th century, had this to say about the Psalms, "All the wonders of Greek civilization heaped together are less wonderful than is the simple Book of Psalms."

There may not be a more captivating and thrilling chapter in the Bible than Ezekiel chapter one, where the prophet describes in explicit detail his vision of the Lord coming in a whirlwind. The entire book of Revelation uses wonderful imagery and symbolism to convey the Great Day of the Lord and Christ’s triumphant return to the earth. The four synoptic gospels all detail the life and ministry of Jesus Christ as each writer skillfully depicts a different aspect of the Savior, from His deity to His humanity to His coming kingdom. Then there is the Book of Ruth, a love story from other days, which moves the reader from tragic heartbreak at its outset to overflowing joy at its conclusion in just four short chapters.

Alas, I do not have the time or space to touch on the literary brilliance of each book of the Bible, but would encourage you to begin reading it if you never have in the past. So many people believe the errant perception that the writers of the Bible were old men that offer nothing of value for our present age. This statement could not be more false. Quite simply, the Bible is the divine communicating to the human, conveying His message of salvation through every genre of the human language.

"If I were asked what has been the most powerful force in the making of history, I should have answered figurative expression. It is by imagination that men have lived; imagination rules all our lives. The human mind is not, as philosophers would have you think, a debating hall, but a picture gallery. Remove the figurative expressions from the Bible and its living spirit vanishes…the prophets, the poets, the leaders of men are all of them masters of imagery, and by imagery they capture the human soul." - W. MacNeil Dixon, Professor of English Literature at the University of Glasgow

Tribulation is the Appointed Path to the Kingdom

First, I am hoping that the title of this blog does not scare anyone away from reading further. I debated much about changing it but decided to keep it as I think it most accurately reflects the context of this post. It may sound familiar to you as it is a quote from Sir Walter Scott as he was discussing the Christian life. He too, did not intend to scare anyone away, but his choice of words was also quite deliberate as he wanted to make sure no one believed that once they put their trust in Jesus Christ as their personal Savior that their life would be all sunshine and rainbows. It would seem that this type of prosperity gospel, where God is viewed as a sugar daddy just waiting to answer our every heart’s desire, was prevalent during Scott’s day, and also permeates our day too within the Pentecostal and faith movements.

But what does the Bible have to say? As you read through the Word of God, there is a theme of tribulation woven throughout the very lives of the writers of the Bible. Moses wrote the Pentateuch (first five books of the Bible) when he was in the wilderness. David wrote the majority of his Psalms when he was running for his life from King Saul. Ezekiel wrote while he was in exile. Jeremiah, who is often called the weeping prophet, lived a life that was characterized by trial and persecution. Peter wrote his two letters just before he was martyred. Paul wrote many of his letters while in prison and John, the beloved apostle of Jesus, was isolated on the island of Patmos when he penned the Book of Revelation. Speaking of John, I heard a preacher once say that when John was cut off from civilization on that small, deserted island. Shut off from everyone. He was shut up to God and there received the most extensive revelation of future events ever shown to any writer in the New Testament.

It is amazing to ponder that thought, isn’t it? John, who was put on the island of Patmos (a small Greek island in the Aegean Sea) for preaching the gospel, saw Christ revealed in all his glory and was given the awesome task of not just witnessing the Second Coming of Christ, but writing down the event for every future generation.

While there are many purposes for suffering – to glorify God, to reveal our spiritual condition, to chastise us for disobedience, to refine us to make us more like Christ, to develop within us the fruits of the Spirit – I think many times trials and tribulations are there just to bring us into the quite place where we can hear from God and know Him in a new way.

So often in the Scriptures we are admonished to spend time alone with the Lord, “Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). “Therefore I was left alone when I saw this great vision…” (Daniel 10:8). Jesus, Himself, often rose early in the morning to spend time alone with the Father, “Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He [Jesus] went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed” (Mark 1:35).

Sir Walter Scott said that tribulation is the appointed path to the kingdom because we only get to the kingdom in the patience of Christ. Herein lies a marvelous truth. So many people claim to want to really know the Lord but they do not want to have to go through anything or give anything to truly know Him. A relationship with anyone has a cost, and so too with Christ, “And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it” (Luke 14: 27-28).

If we truly want to know the Living God and all his glory than we have to be willing to be separated unto Him, each of us in our quiet place, stripped of self and the commotion of life, always remembering that “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18).

"No soul can really be at rest until it has given up dependence on everything else and has been forced to depend on the Lord alone… If God is what He would seem to be from His revealings; if He is indeed the 'God of all comfort;' if He is our Shepherd; if He is really and truly our Father; if, in short, all the many aspects He has told us of His character and His ways are actually true, then we must come to the positive conviction that He is, in Himself alone, enough for all our needs and that we may rest in Him absolutely and forever.” - Hannah Whitall Smith