Happy Thankgiving Everyone. Have a wonderful and Blessed day.
Do we as Christians believe in the True God of the Bible? Do we believe what he commands us to do? How to we
expect the People of our country to act if we can not Obey Him? We are poor examples of what God expects of Us.
Are we too concern about what a great deal we can get on Friday on some Material Things the day after Thank-giving?
We say 1 John 4:19
“We love him, because he first loved us.”
Do We?
Thanksgiving should be a special day that we remember to be thankful for everything that God has given us the
past year.
Should be the second time we are thankful for those things.
Why celebrate Thanksgiving?
Thanksgiving. This is the first thanksgiving proclamation:
William Bradford of Massachusetts made this first Thanksgiving Proclamation three years after the Pilgrims
settled at Plymouth:
“Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, peas, beans,
squashes, and garden vegetables, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams,
and inasmuch as He has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease,
has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience.
I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and ye little ones, do gather at ye
meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the day time, on Thursday, November 29th, of the
year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty three and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye
Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to ye pastor and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings.”
Now, Thanksgiving was not celebrated every year after that.
“Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be
grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress
have, by their joint committee, requested me to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public
thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of
Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for
their safety and happiness:
“Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 25th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of
these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the Beneficent Author of all the good that was,
that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for
His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and
manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war;
for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and
rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness,
and particularly the national one now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are
blessed,and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great
and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.
——————————
“And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and
Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in
public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our
National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional
laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations
(especially such as have show kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to
promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us;
and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.”
George Washington,
October 3, 1789
“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We have been preserved, the many years, in peace
and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten
God.
We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us;
and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some
superior wisdom and virtue of our own.
With unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace,
too proud to pray to God that made us! It behooves us, then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess
our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.”
April 30, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln’s Proclamation for a National Day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer.
After the War Between The States, Congress declared Thanks-giving as an official holiday.
1939 President Franklin D. Roosevelt shifted the day of Thanksgiving from the last Thursday in November to one week
earlier. Retail merchants had petitioned the president to make the change to allow for an extra week of shopping
between Thanksgiving and X-mas. Many Americans objected to the change in their holiday customs and continued to
celebrate Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of the month.
Roosevelt’s political opponents in Congress also opposed the break with tradition and dubbed the early holiday
“Franksgiving.” In May 1941 Roosevelt admitted that he had made a mistake and signed a bill that established
the fourth Thursday of November as the national Thanksgiving holiday, which it has been ever since.
“Enter into His gates with thanksgiving” (Psalm 100:1-5).
1(A Psalm of praise.) Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands.
2 Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing.
3 Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the
sheep
of his pasture.
4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his
name.
5 For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.
Far too often, we come to God with a “Give me this” or “Give me that” attitude. God has blessed us far too
much to never give Him thanks for what He has done. We deserve none of his blessings.
Let us give thanks to our great God for all the wonderful things He has done for us!
“O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.
O give thanks unto the God of gods: for his mercy endureth for ever.
O give thanks to the Lord of Lords: for his mercy endureth for ever” (Psalm 136:1-3).
“Only one life to live and soon is past
Only what’s done for Christ will last!”
Hoping to make the time I have left count for the glory of God.
Happy Thankgiving Everyone. Have a wonderful and Blessed day.