How can we rejoice with thanksgiving?

1 Thessalonians 5:16–18: “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

I know that the Thanksgiving holiday is coming up soon…like in a couple of weeks, but how can we be thankful in the climate that is against Christians in America and around the world? First…don’t question God about your situation. You are there in that place for a reason. Good or bad, it will be a blessing for you and you will give glory to Him for it.

Why do I say this? Because my life was a mess while I was growing up. If you don’t want to read a portion of my life story, stop reading now. My parents divorced when I was five. My Dad brought us home to my grandparent’s place, parked the trailer there that we had been living in with him and left. From that point on through the seventies and eighties my emotions were all over the place.

I thought that nobody wanted me and that’s the way I lived from day to day. From the first grade on through high school I pretty much kept to myself. I made friends but I didn’t join any “groups” in my class or participate in sports. I didn’t like school…period. I started drinking when I was in the ninth grade because there was a place in town that you could get whiskey as long as you had the money. So, every Friday night I told my mother that I was going to the football game. I did actually go but I wasn’t there for the game, I came to get drunk. Most of the time I slowly drove home and I was not caught being drunk until I wrecked my Mom’s car one night.

To make a long, boring story short, my teenage years weren’t much fun. After I graduated, I worked for the first summer with my Dad in Florida while Irby was putting power lines through the Everglades. Hot and sticky doesn’t describe how those swamps felt during the summer of ’79. I did attempt to go to a junior college that fall but I drank more than I studied, so I quit after the first semester and joined the Air Force. Still looking for a place to fit in.

I won’t bore you with life after all of this because it was up and down for many years until I got married to a wonderful girl and a few years after that we had a baby boy. That is when God got my attention. I had given my life to Jesus a few years before my son was born but I didn’t know how to be an example for him and that is the “job” that God wanted me to take on. I began studying the Bible and praying about being a good example. Of course, the answer was to be more like Jesus.

Why have I written this way today? Because, the young people in America and around the world need to know Jesus. They need to see grown-ups living out their faith. Yes, there have been revivals since Charlie Kirk was killed and there will likely be many more because young people are hungry for Someone real to follow and Jesus can fill that empty space that I felt years ago and that many feel today. Your life can have an impact on someone. Make sure that your impact is one that Jesus would approve of. Make your life into a discipleship of following Jesus so that others will want to follow Him too.

My brief testimony about the lonely life I had due to a broken home shouldn’t impress anyone and I doubt that it will, but I pray that anyone who reads this would seek to know Jesus as their Savior. He is the One who can bring joy to each of us in the good times and during bad times too. God loves us and sent Jesus to pay for our sins so that we might be forgiven if we only place our faith in Jesus for our salvation. It requires nothing on our part except for belief in Him for our salvation. Begin your new life with Him today so that you will be in His family for eternity.

Let me see…

What was your favorite subject in school?

Recess

Don’t be a grouch

What does it mean to be a kid at heart?

Look for the fun in your daily life. Seek the Lord and learn to just have fun even when things don’t seem that way. Don’t make fun of a serious problem but don’t let it drag you down either. Give your problems to the Lord and don’t worry about them after that.

Where are we?

Today and most any day, the news has much to talk about…in spurts. A few words here and there, then they put on commercials about some drug that will help you lose weight or lower your cholesterol. It doesn’t seem to matter much about where the news comes from or who it may be about. Most of the time the few blurbs that you hear are so random until I can’t tell if it is actual news or not. It doesn’t seem to be important news, just a few words between commercials.

Nobody seems to be looking at the world and what is happening with a lens through the Bible. We are living in prophesied times and it seems that 99 percent of the world couldn’t care less. There are Christians being killed in Asia and Africa almost every day but you never hear about it, unless someone from a Christian news agency happens to report on it. Even then, most people don’t pay much attention to it.

The world around us is being controlled by a Satanic worldview but nobody seems to care about that either. The church doesn’t even talk about it much anymore. We should be at least praying for those Christians in countries where they are persecuted and killed for their faith.

One day soon, Jesus is going to come back to get those who believe in Him. Those who have died and those who are still alive will be changed in the blink of an eye and taken out of this world. When that happens, the world and those left here will know that the Bible was the Truth and that they were left behind. Some in the churches will be left, but they will know what happened. It won’t be long after this that the world will be seeking a leader who will take their fears away and bring “peace and safety”.

For a few years, everything will look good but it won’t last. Seek your salvation in Jesus Christ today because we are not promised tomorrow. He could come for the church at any time, make sure that you are a part of it before the Trumpet blows.

Jesus is the Way

The Lord is with you!

Where are the disciples?

Before Jesus left He told His disciples to go and make disciples of all nations; teaching them everything that He taught. We have taken the gospel to many nations but have we discipled them? Have we taught them how to carry their good news to others? In some places we have, but it would seem that it hasn’t taken the world by storm given the time that we have had over the past two thousand years.

Even in America, where we have the freedom to believe and worship however we want to, it seems that the church has dropped the ball on discipleship. What happened? The answer is this: the enemy has twisted our gospel and we, the church, have allowed it to happen. We have been afraid of being labeled as extremists or radicals, but Jesus was labeled that as well and His followers too.

So…what’s keeping us from taking His message to the other side of the street or to the next town? We shouldn’t be afraid of rejection because Jesus told us “if they will not receive your message, shake the dust off of your shoes and move on”. Thank them for their attention and wish them a nice day. God knows those who are called by Him and their hearts will be receptive to the gospel.

God calls those who will receive His message and if some don’t, then take it to someone else. Eventually you will find someone who is actively looking for a peace that can’t be explained or a Savior that will change them from who they are into the person He knows they can be. Carrying a grudge against someone only hurts you, so give your heart to Jesus and allow that grudge to be taken away. Let God fix that part of you that was hurt so you can be His regardless of the past.

Tell people about your encounter with Jesus and what He has done for you. Eternity is just up ahead, make sure it will be with Jesus. Our lives here are only a small part of the training, make sure of where you will spend the rest of your life. Will it be with Jesus or without Him?