Monday, November 24, 2014

Thankful Enough?

Hey Everyone!
      Gosh it's almost been a full blown couple of months!! Sorry for the delay, things have been busy and it's been a little difficult trying to come up with a new topic to write on. But don't worry! I just might have a new series coming up soon ;) I might wait till the new year to post it though, so in the meantime don't worry I got a couple other posts in the making. Just got to put the finishing touches on them.
I was talking to a friend a couple weeks ago, and I was telling him about struggling with Blogging and keeping the content coming. I had said, "The problem I have isn't coming up with topics, the problem is often times I'll have something that I suddenly realize. A lesson from God to apply in my own life, but the problem I have is trying to retell that lesson so that it applies to everyone and not just myself."
So if it takes a little while just know that the content is coming, I'm just trying to make the lesson legible and understandable to other people ;) haha

Now, considering the time of year that it is and with Thanksgiving just a few days away I thought it would be appropriate to do a post on being Thankful.

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 In the Old Testament there isn't a better example of a less thankful people than the Israelites when they were first brought out of Egypt.

"The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. In the Desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, "if only we had died by the Lord's hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death." ~Exodus 16:1-3


Here is the People of God, the very chosen. The ones that watched as God brought plague after plague upon the Egyptians, and then Brought them to the very brim of the Red Sea and they were able to cross over on dry land. Then they watched the Army of Pharaoh be destroyed without a single one of them having to lift a hand.
  These are the people that had been in slavery for 400yrs and God had brought them out of Egypt with a promise for a better land. And what did they do? They began to complain, instead of focusing on all the blessing that God had given them and all that he had done to save them they focused on all the little things and the small hardships they had to endure in order to get to something better.
It got so bad that later on in their Journeys it says that "his anger was aroused" (Numbers 11:1)

Giving thanks is all throughout the Bible, there are many passages where it is actually commanded for us to be thankful and to rejoice! Here are just a few passages.

"Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will for you in Christ Jesus." ~1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

"always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." ~ Ephesians 5:20

"that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent. Lord my God, I will praise you forever." ~ Psalm 30:12

In all circumstances, Give thanks for everything, let's make that true in all of our lives and in all our circumstances whatever we're going through.
So what about you? Have you been focusing too much on the negatives in your life recently? Let's take the time, not only this week, but as often as we possibly can to rejoice and be thankful to God for all those little things in life that we may not think about in our busy day to day lives.

Hope that helps you guys. Leave a comment about something that you're thankful for :)

God Bless,
     Ryan






2 comments:

Joshua Morgan said...

I am thankful for the Colorado Mountains, the Kansas prairies, food to eat, clothes to wear, a country where we can own guns and read our Bibles, and family that lives close by, to name a few. :)

Leah Bender said...

Excellent! So true. (Oh, and awesome comic).
I am thankful for so very much that I do not know where to begin!
Right now, just to name a few: my friends in real life (here on the internet as well), I am also very thankful that I was able to work with the Goshen City attorney and get an internship with EMS! :)

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