12 Days Of ThanksgivingНамуна

Happy Thanksgiving!! For the past eleven days we have offered up our thanks to the Lord for SO MUCH! We have thanked Him for Salvation, Grace, Living Water, the Bread of Life, His Holy Spirit, spouses, children, Gifts from the Holy Spirit, His calling, provision, and His leading as our Shepherd. Today we give thanks to the Lord for free-will, among other things. We will allow our thankfulness to be our sacrifice to the Lord Most High.

In John 7:17 of the New International Version Bible, we read, “Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.” Chooses is highlighted here, because we see the Lord allows us free will. We are afforded the opportunity to choose to respond to Salvation, operate in Grace, and allow the Holy Spirit to lead us. We choose to look on our spouse and children as gifts from God and seek Him in our relationship with them. We get to choose to accept and respond to the gifts of the Spirit He desires to share. We get to choose to walk in His calling for our lives. We also get to choose whether we will offer THANKFULNESS to the Lord. 

Not one of us is a believer operating as a puppet by a celestial puppeteer. The Lord desires we choose, with a heartfelt devotion to our Shepherd, to love and allow Him to operate freely in and through our lives, all while picking us up when we stumble – and we will stumble. So before you sit down to enjoy your succulent turkey, ham, or turducken, be encouraged to go before the Lord and thank Him for the free-will He affords you to live and operate in, while He causes you to become more like Him each day. Before you sit down to enjoy the Thanksgiving Day parade with your family, ask them to share their hearts and all they are thankful for when it comes to God’s goodness. Before you take a nap while the National Dog Show plays in the background, choose to give thanks for the rest we find in knowing we are a children of God. A God Who provides an eternal rest from all our striving and yearning for temporal things of this world, for His Kingdom.

Happy Thanksgiving, be well, thank You God!