The Big Four

Happy Thanksgiving! This week, our entire nation is celebrating Thanksgiving. The irony of it is with so much cooking, traveling, entertaining, football, and shopping the biggest sales of the year, very little thanks will get done. For the most part, just a single prayer gets said on Thanksgiving day – possibly before the meal, and usually by one person. We miss that the whole point of the holiday season is to give thanks to God for what He’s done in our lives.

So I just want to share with you a way I think we can make this thanksgiving season different and carry it right into Christmas the season and into every day in 2010. It begins with realizing that everything you own and everything you are comes from God. Without God there would be nothing in your life. In the Old Testament,1 Chronicles 29 reads, “Everything has come from You [God] and everything belongs to You [God].”

If we did not have God in our lives, if God had not created us, we would have nothing. So it all starts with God. When we start to think, “What we can be thankful for?” we really have to thank God for everything. If you are a Christ follower, you have reason to thank God for what I call the “BIG FOUR.” If we get these down, our priorities will be healthy.

1. I AM THANKFUL TO GOD FOR THE GRACE HE HAS SHOWN ME.

2. I AM THANKFUL TO GOD FOR THE PLAN HE HAS FOR ME.

3. I AM THANKFUL TO GOD FOR THE ETERNAL LIFE HE HAS GIVEN ME.

4. I AM THANKFUL TO GOD FOR THE CHANGES HE’S MAKING IN ME.

More than just saying thanks, let’s live thanks! How? By singing, by serving, by giving, and by sharing. I hope your thanksgiving week is filled with lifelong memories and that, for you, thanksgiving is lived out every day of the year.