The Importance of Thanksgiving

Because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful,

Romans 1:21

This week is Thanksgiving week. What a great Holiday! We don’t think of Thanksgiving as a religious holiday, like Christmas and Easter, but it is right in line with Scripture. 

According to Scripture it is the normal and right response to give thanks to God. In Romans 1, we see by contrast the importance of being thankful to God for who He is and what He has done for us. The unrighteous in Romans 1were not thankful to God, and their hearts were darkened.

Our culture almost forces us to be ungrateful. Modern advertising is built on making people covet. We always think of what we don’t have or how much more others have than we do. In reality, if you live in America, you have it much better than the rest of the world.

The Bible tells us that we should be thankful to God. Acts 14 states that God“¹⁷ … did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.” God is good and He has been good to all. He gives us life and sustains our life. He gives us loved ones with whom we can enjoy that life with.  At the very least we should be thankful to Him for giving and sustaining our lives.

If you have trouble being thankful, do what my wife and I do. Every Thanksgiving we take time during our drive to Tennessee where we each list everything we can think of that we are thankful for. It becomes kind of a competition as we go back and forth trying to outlast one another. People are even doing this on social media. If you take time to thank God for everything you have to be thankful for, you will begin to see just how blessed you are and you will genuinely be thankful on Thanksgiving.    

Is God Finished with Israel?

²⁵ For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. ²⁶ And so all Israel will be saved, Romans 11  

For some Christians Israel isn’t on the map. Even worse, some Christians believe that Israel has been replaced. They claim that God is done with Israel. This is not what the Bible teaches.

For the past two thousand years “blindness in part has happened to Israel.” They don’t recognize Jesus as their Messiah nor do they turn to Him to wash away their sins.  Conversely, during this time many non-Jewish people have had their eyes opened, and are calling on Jesus as Savior and being saved.

However, as the text states we are not to be “ignorant of this mystery.” One day after all the “Gentiles” that are to be saved get saved, God will move on the Jewish people and “Israel will be saved.”  This was prophesied in Zechariah 12 “¹⁰ And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.”  That is, one day their eyes will be opened and they will recognize the Lord “whom they pierced” and they will “mourn.”  They will see Jesus, “the Lamb who was slain” and “mourn” but their mourning will lead to repentance. Their eyes will be opened, and hearts contrite, they’ll turn to Jesus and “so all Israel will be saved.”

So, for the record, God is not finished with Israel. Be not “wise in your own opinion” and think that God has forgotten the people He formed as a nation. We as gentile believers should have a place in our heart for Israel and a desire for the Jewish people to embrace Jesus as their Messiah. 

Observations on Sharing the Gospel from “The Parable of The Sower”

³ Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow. ⁴ And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. ⁵ Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. ⁶ But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. ⁷ And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. ⁸ But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. ⁹ He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” Matt 13

This parable is a about how the world responds to the Gospel. Later on in Matthew 13:18-23, Jesus explains what the parable means. The seed is the Word of God and the four different types of soils are the conditions of the hearts that the Word falls on once sowed.

The four types of hearts have four different responses, and they are all interesting. The first type of heart is a heart that is as hard as pavement; the Word just kind of bounces off it.  These seem to be the people who just out right reject the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Whether they be atheist, agnostics or believe in false gods, they want nothing to do with the Gospel of Jesus and make no bones about it.  

The second type of soil/heart, rocky soil with no depth,  may be the most interesting. When they hear the Gospel they receive it with joy! Sounds promising, doesn’t it?  However, Jesus says that there is no depth in them, and when hardships or persecution comes they stumble. This certainly seems like a very promising beginning, but in the end as Jesus says they “withered away.”

The third type of soil/heart is similar to the second. There is no outright rejection of the Word, but ultimately the “cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful” (vs. 22)  

Finally the forth soil/heart is the good soil. The Word of God falls on it and, finally, there is fruit! Producing fruit is the main reason seed is planted in the first place. In this parable fruit is changed character and good deeds that is the evidence of salvation.

I would like to leave you with a couple of quick observations from this parable in regards to sharing the Gospel: 

1. The seed/Word of God does not change. It is the one constant in all four cases. Many people and ministries try to change their approach to sharing the Gospel because they perceive that the Word will not be accepted. However, it is not the Gospel that is the variable in this parable. The variable is the condition of the heart. Stick to the Biblical Gospel. 
2. The seed/Word is thrown on all types of soils. We cannot see the condition of someone’s heart. You don’t know beforehand whether the soil is rock hard or good for sowing. Our job is just to spread the seed/Word.  You never know when that unfriendly looking person next to you might turn out to be good soil.