Celebration--Republished from Thanksgiving, 2016

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

Here are a couple of great old Thanksgiving Hymns for you to enjoy this day of Thanks!

What I Am Thankful For--Part 4

On Monday, I started talking about the top four things I am thankful for. Number four was the great country in which I live. Number three was the friends that God has put in my life throughout my 46 years on this earth. Number two was my family, both church and my wife and kids. Today, I want to share my number one thing that I am thankful for.

#1—Jesus Christ and the Salvation I have through Him

Back in 1984, on January 4th, I gave my life to Christ. Oh, I had prayed a prayer when I was three, but it was just that...a prayer. I had not truly surrendered my life to Jesus. So on that day in 1984, at the W.L.D. Ranch in Fairview, Pennsylvania, I prayed to receive Jesus as my savior, and allowed Him to have control over my life.

A lot of things happened after that. I began to be more serious about time with God. I spent more time in reading my Bible and more time in prayer. I looked forward to church days and youth group where I would learn more about following Jesus. I spent time talking about Jesus with my friends and encouraging them to be more about following Him, too.

But I think the biggest change of all in my life was in the way I lived. I didn't really live for myself anymore, but for the people around me. I began to see them as vital to my life and to the life of church. I began to put their needs ahead of my own and treat them the way I would want to be treated. And all of this was because of that day in January, 1984. 

I'm thankful that Jesus took my life and changed it for the better. I hop that He has done the same with your life. If He hasn't, today could be your January 4th. All you have to do is admit your sin, tell Him that you believe that He is the Son of God and that His death on the cross and the shedding of His blood was enough to pay for your sins, and then receive God's great gift of Salvation! It's up to you, but I know for experience that there isn't a great feeling than knowing that your sins are forgiven, and that your life now has true meaning.

If you want to make that decision today, please let me know by either commenting below, or by commenting on the link you were directed here from (Either Facebook or Google+). It would really be a blessing to me.

Thanks for reading the blog, and we'll see you on Sunday!

What I Am Thankful For—Part 3

Two days ago, I started talking about the top four things I am thankful for. Number four was the great country in which I live. And number three was the friends that God has put in my life throughout my 46 years on this earth. Today, I want to share my number two thing that I am thankful for.

#2—Family

I have been blessed by having such a great family. And I want to share with you some awesome things about that family. The family that God has given me is diverse. They are men and women from every corner of the globe. They are people who love Jesus with all of their heart, mind, soul and strength. They are brothers and sisters who I will one day spend the rest of eternity with, and it doesn’t matter what label they put on themselves, they are those who I love and love me.

I am, of course, speaking of my heavenly family, that is called “The Church”. I am so thankful for all of them, because of they have encouraged me, strengthened me, appreciated me, and shown me and my earthly family such kindness. So, for all of you who are my family in Christ, thank you for who you are and for all you do!

But I would be incredibly remiss if I do not also say, “Thank you, Lord” for my earthly family. I am so thankful to the Lord for the parents He gave me. Wayne and Mary have been a solid rock in my life and they taught me what it is to love God and follow after Him. That is a heritage that I can never say “Thank You!” enough for.

I also thank God for my brother, Tim. He’s one of my closest friends and he is always there for me when I need him. His words are sometimes hard for me to hear, but he never stops loving me. And for that, I thank God.

I also thank God for my other parents who He gave me when I married their daughter. Jack and Kay have been cheerleaders, advisors, sounding-boards, and all-around great people. I am SO thankful because I know that some others I know have not had as good of fortune as I have when it comes to In-Laws. Thanks God!

And I thank God for my kids, Anna, Andrew, Abigail, Alexander, Allison, and Azariah. They fill my life with such joy and happiness. They are always making me laugh, sometimes making me cry, but always making me love them more each day.

And now, I save the best for last. I thank God, every day of my life, for the love that He has shown to me through my loving, beautiful and talented wife, Cindy. She is truly my best friend in the world. Sometimes I do not demonstrate to her through my life just how much I love and appreciate her. But she means more to me than anything else in this world. She is my companion, my love and my accountability partner. She holds my feet to the fire when I am wrong, and she cheers me on when I’m right. I love her more now than the day I married her, and I less than I will tomorrow.

Thank you, Lord for my family! You have used them to make me who I am today!

We’ll see you on Sunday!

What I Am Thankful For—Part 2

Yesterday, I talked to you about how thankful I was to live in a great country like the USA. That was #4 on my list of things I am truly thankful for. Today, I would like to talk to you about…

#3—Friends

I have been truly blessed with the friends that I have. Some of them I am related to, others I am not. I don’t have many friends (or what I would call “close friends”), so I tend to be thankful for the ones that I have. And I’m not talking about Facebook “friends” who may or may not care what is going on in my life.

I’m talking about real, honest-to-goodness friends. I think it’s true that friendship is sometimes a fleeting thing. You have friends who you are close to for a while, but then as you go through life you grow apart, either by distance or circumstances. I believe that Godo brings friends into your life at certain times of your life to teach you things that you need in your life.

I think of my two best friends in Jr. High School, Kevin and Jeff who I did most everything with. We hung out, went to movies, talked, played games, went to school and just about everything else together. They were in my wedding and I was in theirs. But as they lived in Pennsylvania and I lived in Michigan, we didn’t see each other much after High School. So we grew apart, and while I still consider them my friends, and would be there for them if they needed me, I don’t feel we are as close as we were.

Then there are the friends I made in College, like Dave, Keith, Matt Scott and Shannon. These friends (roommates, teammates and classmates) were close when I was at Moody, but many of them I haven’t talked to in a long, long time.

There are friends that I had in Michigan, like Dave, Chris, Don, Chris and Kelly. They were there for me in ministry and helped me through many dark valleys in my life. They helped me get over some hurtful things that I experienced and they encouraged me to keep the faith and keep loving even when I wasn’t loved in return. Now they’re gone from my proximity, but never from my memory, and I thank God for them.

But I am most thankful for the friendships that have endured. The friendships that have lasted have been the ones that we’ve worked at…both them and me. People like Cindy (who I married, by the way), Bob, Tim, and Mike. We’ve reached out regularly, spoken on the phone, been completely honest with each other and even challenged each other. These friends have been critical of me, and I got mad at them for it, but later, knew they were right. These are friends who have always been there and will never leave. They are the epitome of Proverbs 17:17a, “A friend loves at all times…”.

Honestly, there aren’t too many of that kind of friend in my life, and that’s okay. I’m not sure I could handle too many people in my life who knew me that well. But I’m glad they’re there. And I am glad that they always will be.

So this Thanksgiving, thank God for your friends. And we’ll see you on Sunday!

What I Am Thankful For--Part 1

This week, in honor of Thanksgiving, I thought that I would write about the 4 things that I am most thankful for. We will move our celebration day to Thursday (for obvious reasons) and Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday would be the days that I will tell you what I’m thankful for, and talk about them a bit.

#4—The United States of America

Our country has seen some pretty rough times of late. We’ve seen a very contentious presidential election, riots in the streets because we are unhappy that our candidate lost, racial discriminations seem to be on the rise, winking and nodding at sin like it really isn’t sin, and many other things seem to be causing people to look at America as a laughing stock.

But the truth of the matter is that this is still the greatest country in the world. We are free here to worship, to pray, to speak our minds, and to assemble without the fear of our government coming in and carting us all off to jail. In many countries, these things are not true. Any gathering of Christians can be broken up and the leaders can be taken to jail simply because they are meeting in the Name of Jesus.

But here in the USA, we have the right to assemble and to pray and to worship our God. In fact, that is why the Pilgrims first came to this new land. They were not okay with being forced into a certain way of believing simply because their government told them that was how they should believe. So they came here to live in peace and worship as they thought best.

The founder of our government, while not all Christians, believed that God had brought them there for a purpose and they were not going to shrink from that purpose. They set up a government that was not free from religion, but a government that was supposed to uphold and honor the rights of every citizen to worship how they saw fit. It was (and in many cases still is) a melting pot of people with many different lifestyles, tastes, languages, customs and religions. Some of what has been “thrown in” has stuck; other things have not; but in all cases, we are all a part of the same group of people who came here to start over, and find new freedoms in a new land.

So I am thankful that in this country we are still free to pray, to worship, to meet together and to speak our minds without the fear of harassment or punishment. I am thankful for the United States of America!

Thanks for reading this today, and have a great Thanksgiving week. We’ll see you on Sunday!