In All My Remembrance of You

In All My Remembrance of You

Philippians 1:3-5 3I thank my God in all my remembrance of you.  4In every prayer of mine I always make my entreaty and petition for you all with joy (delight).  5[I thank my God] for your fellowship (your sympathetic cooperation and contributions and partnership) in advancing the good news (the Gospel) from the first day [you heard it] until now.
We have been talking about giving thanks all week, and I think it’s particularly fitting that on this Thanksgiving Day we discuss this verse. Paul says He thanks God when he thinks about the people in Philippi. It’s good to give thanks for the people in our lives. Today I am going to take a minute to reflect on those that I am thankful for and I encourage you to do the same.
I am thankful for my wonderful husband. He is an amazing man of God, an incredible father to our children, my best friend and the love of my life. He also happens to be my pastor and I am grateful for the way he preaches the unadulterated Word of God. It has changed my life and transformed the way I think and act. Thanks honey for being the blessing you are to me, our family, and so many others. I am thankful for my precious children. They each have their own special talents and abilities. Lo- you are so smart, sweet and loving. You are responsible and make right choices. It is exciting to see the musical gifts being developed in you. I am so proud of you for being exceptional in every way. Lu- my little man. You are full of energy and never stop, but you are also so sweet and loveable. You are smart and funny and keep us laughing all the time. Gi- our little princess. You are such a little girly-girl, sweet but tough at the same time. You know what you want and have a determination and tenacity that will take you far in life. I am thankful for my parents and my mother and father in-law, my grandparents both living and those no longer with us. You have guided, loved, supported encouraged and been there through us in every stage our lives. I am thankful for my brothers and sisters and their families. Even though I don’t get to see them that much I am proud of them and love them very much. My extended family is so big and diverse. I have many aunts, uncles and cousins and I appreciate them for the unique and special individuals they are.  I am thankful for friends. There are too many to mention and I don’t want to leave anyone out. But I am blessed to have amazing people in my life. My dearest friend who although we don’t see each other very often, we can always pick up right where we left off. Those who I am around on a regular basis that enrich my life daily with their friendship.  The old friends that I am having the pleasure of reconnecting with. The members of our congregation who are so precious and dear to us- it is a privilege to be your pastors. Both Pastor Chris and I love and appreciate you so very much. All the people who mentored and guided me throughout my life-Your words did not fall on deaf ears even though it may have seemed like it at times! Remember that the Word will not return void!
I am grateful for so many people and like Paul, I thank God for your fellowship, your partnership, and your contributions in my life. Have a blessed thanksgiving and take the time to be thankful for the people who make your life a little better.

Thanksgiving and Praise

Thanksgiving and Praise

Psalm 100:4-5 4Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and a thank offering and into His courts with praise! Be thankful and say so to Him, bless and affectionately praise His name!  5For the Lord is good; His mercy and loving-kindness are everlasting, His faithfulness and truth endure to all generations.
In this Psalm David exhorts us to enter into the presence of the Lord with thanksgiving. Giving thanksgiving means to offer up an expression of gratitude or appreciation for something. We are not told to thank the Lord after we have spent time with Him, rather, that we are to have a heart of gratitude before we even get into His presence. That means before we worship, before we seek him, before we ask for anything, our first action is to show appreciation to Him- just for who He is.  The next verse gives us that part. He is good, His mercy and loving-kindness are everlasting, He is faithful and true not only to us, but to our future generations.
Something else that we see here is that although we initially enter His gates with thanksgiving, next we enter His courts with praise. This isn’t the first place in the Bible that thanks and praise go together Psalm 92:1-2 says 1IT IS a good and delightful thing to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises [with musical accompaniment] to Your name, O Most High,  2To show forth Your loving-kindness in the morning and Your faithfulness by night. In 2 Samuel 22 David spends many verses telling all the wonderful things God is and has done, then in verse 50 he says- 50For this I will give thanks and extol You, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing praises to Your name. In 2 Chronicles 31:2 we see that 2And Hezekiah appointed the priests and the Levites after their divisions, each man according to his service, the priests and Levites for burnt offerings and for peace offerings, to minister, to give thanks, and to praise in the gates of the camp of the Lord.
Thanksgiving and praise go hand in hand. Probably because when you begin to offer thanksgiving to the Lord, telling Him how much you appreciate Him, showing your gratitude for the blessing He is in your life, you can’t help but switch over into praise. It’s interesting that one of the synonyms for praise is worship and one of the synonyms for worship is thanks. Try it for yourself. Begin to offer thanks to the Lord. Thanks for who He is, thanks for what He’s done, and thanks for what He’d going to do in your life. See if after you thank Him for a few minutes if you don’t feel like letting out a praise!