Thanksgiving 2014

These are some crazy tumultuous times indeed! What is there to give thanks for? Great convulsions of pain, sorrow, indignation, despair, and violence explode from the earth. Such things are what life in a sinful and fallen world show.

Hope still emerges for us all. God never sleeps nor slumbers. The second advent of Jesus Christ remains, and there will be a day when all things will be set to right.

But, who is innocent? Who can escape the judgment to come? Do unto others as you would have them do to you. Give an eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth. If the rightness of reciprocity and justice is true, then everyone at some point must come to grips with just what offenses they have committed against the other, and the number of eyes and teeth that need to be extracted. It’s easy to point the finger to an institution or a person and say, “They’re the problem,” without ever the thought: “Wait a minute, I’m the problem.” The old three fingers pointing back cliché.

Judgment Day is coming.

The God of the universe can also extend mercy. Christ can even take upon Himself the sin of the world, and provide the way for sinners to receive forgiveness. Many have taken stock of their own existence, they understand that while others have been doing wrong, and they came to realize their failure at doing right but they have received good news overflowing with mercy and forgiveness.

What is there to be thankful for? Divine patience, mercy, grace, forgiveness, justification, and redemption. There is an expiration date for all things in this time-space continuum. Christ is coming to judge the living and the dead. Until then, every day is God’s gift of time for all people to turn around and receive spiritual power to redeem what has been lost, reconcile what has been broken, and restore what has been marred. I, therefore, echo the words of Paul, “In everything give thanks” (1 Thess. 5:18).

~ WGN

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