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Enter With Thanksgiving

“Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.” Psalm 100:4 (NIV)

The writer of this psalm tells us in one sentence how we are to approach God. He tells us to enter thankfully to count it a privilege to enter God’s realm. We are to enter praising Him for even the smallest thing.

We all can recall times when we praised God for His goodness to us. A little over a year ago, a friend’s mother, a Cancer patient, had a difficult time when the doctor’s had to set a new pick line. The lady’s blood count was too low. When I heard the story, I recognized we didn’t have to go through anything like that 14 years earlier when my stepmother had her last round of Breast Cancer. I also realized I might not have praised God for the specific deed of keeping her blood count good.

Recently, I sat at my desk praising God for the work He did in a man from our church. While he is facing possible charges on something that seems to have transpired a decade and a half ago, I know God changed him into one who works for Him.

Earlier this month, I was able to give thanks to God that one of my closest friends was not hurt or caused no physical injury to another person when she rear ended a truck with her car.

With Thanksgiving

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:6-7(NIV)

Paul shares with us a lesson we all should review. He tells us to pray with thanksgiving. I personally have had times when my circumstance was not anything I wanted to thank Him for. But, I believe that we are to thank Him for the fact that we have Him to help us and guide us through the issue.

We can also thank Him for what He is going to do to resolve the circumstance before He does. We have instances when we know God is the only one who can remedy a problem; in fact, all of the issues that confront us can be solved by God’s intervention in our lives. When God chooses to mediate in our stresses, He either handles the facts himself or he instructs us what we need to do. Somewhere along the way we have to remember to thank Him.

Each month I download a calendar, with scripture on it, from a website. The one I chose for this month displayed this particular scripture. I was so taken by the simple message; I chose to adopt this verse for 2012.

Thanks In All Circumstances

“Give thanks in all circumstances.”

1 Thessalonians 5:18. . .

Paul tells the Thessalonians and us to express thanks in all. situations. Christians have wrestled with this verse ever since he wrote it. The key here is with the two letter word, ‘in’.

God doesn’t expect us to give thanks for all circumstances in which we find ourselves. We could do a lot of damage if we counseled people to give thanks for their hardship or their loved one’s major illness.

We need to recognize that all we have, all we are, and all we go through have God as the source. He allows the tough times to enter our lives. He promised to ‘never leave us or forsake us.’ (Deuteronomy 31:6,8 Joshua 1:5,1 Kings 8:57, Hebrews13:5) We have to learn to thank Him for being there with us as we walk through the problem no matter what it is.

My wish for you all is that you have a great day of giving thanks to God for all he has done for you. Our family Thanksgiving will be postponed one week. Our son is flying in for a rather long and busy weekend next week.

"Point of Reference" from Fred Price

A Broken Spirit And Contrite Heart