Thank You, Lord

"I will praise the name of God with a song,

and will magnify Him with thanksgiving."

- Psalm 69:30

 

 

Loving Shepherd of my soul,

Keep me close; I love You so.

Lead me where the waters flow

In Your rich green pasture.

Be my Guide; I'm in Your care;

Keep my feet from ev'ry snare.

I will follow anywhere

You call me to go.

 

 

Refrain

Thank You, Lord; Thank You, Lord;

I will thank You, Lord.

In Your will I'm content;

I'll not wish for more.

I will seek Your kingdom first;

I will trust all that You do.

Thank You, Lord; Thank You, Lord;

I rejoice in You.

 

 

Shepherd of eternity,

All my future You can see.

Show me what is best for me;

I trust in Your goodness.

In the valley I'll not fear;

Through the storm Your voice I hear.

Your strong arm is always near;

I rest in Your love.

- Ron Hamilton

 

(pictures from Banff National Park, Canada 2012)

Thanksgiving

"As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord,

so walk ye in Him: rooted and built up in Him,

and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught,

abounding therein with thanskgiving."

- Colossians 2:6-7

 

 

Thanksgiving and its hustle and bustle of preparation has passed. Many travel long distances to celebrate with family and friends, enjoy a wonderful meal, and spend a few minutes filling out notecards with things they are thankful for. Today, however, most will return home and go back to their normal routines. 

 

As Christians, gratitude and a thankful heart are not to be limited to a holiday that comes once a year. Our lives are to be characterized by thanksgiving year-round. The Apostle Paul exhorts us to "in everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you" (I Thessalonians 5:18).

 

Wait a minute. In everything give thanks?

 

Well, that's what Scripture says. Note, however, the Apostle's wording: not "for" everything but "in" everything. As believers, we can always find something to be thankful for, no matter what circumstance we find ourselves in.  In her book Choosing Gratitude, Nancy Leigh DeMoss writes, "True, Christ-centered, grace-motivated gratitude fits everywhere, even in life's most desperate moments and difficult situations." That's because it's not about us, it's all about Him and what He has done for us.

 

Salvation is one of God's great gifts that we can never be thankful enough for. "Being humbly thankful to God for our salvation - the most undeserved transaction in our personal history - is the starting point for the purest form of gratitude: God-ward, Christ-centered gratitude" (Nancy Leigh DeMoss).

 

Thank you, Lord, for saving my soul.

Thank you, Lord, for making me whole.

Thank you, Lord, for giving to me

Thy great salvation so rich and free.

- Seth and Bessie Sykes

 

I am so thankful that the Lord came down to earth to die for me and save me by His amazing grace. My sins are forgiven, and I now live as an accepted, beloved child of God (Ephesians 1:18, Galatians 3:26). In light of what the Lord has done for us, our lives should be characterized by gratitude -- an outpouring of the grace we have received.

 

In addition to salvation, the gift of every spiritual blessing in heavenly places (Ephesians 1:13), and the gift of all things that pertain to life and godliness (II Peter 1:3), we have many other things to be thankful for. A few of the gifts I am thankful for this morning...

 

- salvation and the assurance of eternity with Christ

 

- God's faithfulness, mercy, and lovingkindness

 

- my wonderful parents

 

- my best friends: my brothers and sister

 

- my dear grandma

 

- the friendship and fellowship of sisters-in-Christ

- books

 

- a warm, cozy house that shelters from the icy wind and snow blowing outside

 

- my iPhone (I don't know what I would do without it!)

 

- my laptop and its host of amazing software programs that allow me to write, edit pictures, do graphic design work, chat with friends via webcam, blog, email, and earn my degree

 

- music and the ability to use it to share the gospel, minister to others, and honor the Lord

 

- my piano

- my violin

 

- a car that runs well and gets good gas mileage

 

- our adorable, affectionate puppy

 

- a day at home with my favorite people in the whole wide world

 

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above,

and cometh down from the Father of lights,

with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."

- James 1:17

 

What are you thankful for today?







Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus

 

"Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith."

- Hebrews 12:2

 

 

O soul, are you weary and troubled?

No light in the darkness you see?

There's light for a look at the Saviour,

And life more abundant and free!

 

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,

Look full in His wonderful face,

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,

In the light of His glory and grace.

 

Through death into life everlasting

He passed, and we follow Him there:

Over us sin no more hath dominion --

For more than conquerors we are!

 

His Word shall not fail you -- He promised;

Believe Him, and all will be well:

Then go to a world that is dying,

His perfect salvation to tell!

- Helen Lemmel

 

The words for this precious hymn we sang in church this morning were inspired by a pamphlet by Lilias Trotter entitled "Focused." The following paragraph especially stood out to the hymnwriter Helen Lemmel and became the main theme for her hymn:

 

"Turn full your soul's vision to Jesus and look and look at Him, and a strange dimness will come over all that is apart from Him, and the Divine 'attrait' by which God's saints are made, even in this 20th century, will lay hold of you. For 'He is worthy' to have all there is to be had in the heart that He has died to win."

- Lilias Trotter

 

"While we look not at the things which are seen,

but at the things which are not seen:

for the things which are seen are temporal;

but the things which are not seen are eternal."

- II Corinthians 4:18





The Servant's Prayer

"O Jesus the Crucified I will follow Thee in Thy path. Inspire me for the next step, whether it leads down into the shadow of death or up into the light. Surely in what place my Lord the King shall be, whether in death or life, even there also will Thy servant be. Amen."

- Lilias Trotter

 

Lilias Trotter finishes Parables of the Cross with this simple yet profound prayer. What amazes me is how much is reflected in these few words.

 

Humility. Absolute surrender. A request for guidance coupled with a willingness to travel whatever path is revealed, even suffering and death. A heart's desire to do the Lord's will. Peace, knowing one is under Christ's loving and sovereign care.

 

Lilias trusted her Saviour with her life.

 

How many of us truly trust the Lord with our lives? It is one thing to surrender our lives, our talents, our skills, our weaknesses, but to willingly accept how the Lord decides to use what we have offered is quite another. Do we reserve areas of our lives for ourselves, unwilling to let Him have control because we have our own goals and afraid He will spoil them? Do we doubt His lovingkindness, not fully resting in the promise that He will work everything out for our good?

 

How can He not know what is best for us? After all, He created us. Our heavenly Father "knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust" (Psalm 103:14).

 

He knows us better than we know ourselves. "O, Lord, Thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, Thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, Thou knowest it all together. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid Thine hand upon me" (Psalm 139:1-5).

 

Surrendering our lives to Christ involves knowing God's character. If we know who He is, then we know that everything that touches our lives has already passed through His divine hand. When we offer ourselves to Him, we have nothing to lose. "He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it" (Matthew 10:39). As Elisabeth Elliot says, fulfillment only comes through sacrifice. We need not worry what Christ will do with our sacrifice. Like Lilias, we only need rest in the truth of His character and His promises, knowing He doeth all things well.

 

"Lord, You have assigned me my portion

and my cup; You have made my lot secure."

- Psalm 16:5, NIV

Our Hope

The election results were likely troubling and disappointing for many Americans, as they were for me. The majority of the voters chose to jettison traditional American conservatism and constitutionalism and embraced instead a different political, economic, and social future for our nation -- a future far removed from what the Founding Fathers envisioned in 1791.

While this is disheartening, we Christians must not forget our hope and our position. As the Apostle Peter writes, we are pilgrims and strangers passing through the world (I Peter 2:11). St. Augustine described our position as members of two cities: the city of God and the city of man. For a time, we are temporary residents of the city of man -- the earth -- and while we live here, we are to do our best to help bring order. We can be involved in politics, exercise our duty to vote, and "render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's" (Mark 12:7). Furthermore, no matter what may happen down here on earth, our sovereign God is in control.

It is He who "removeth kings, and setteth up kings" (Daniel 2:21). God knew the results of the 2012 election and allowed them -- they were not a surprise to Him.

Yet we are never to get so caught up with the happenings on earth that we forget our real home: the city of God.

Our permanent home is not here on earth -- our citizenship is in heaven where we will dwell with our Saviour for eternity (Philippians 3:20). Our ultimate hope is not in America or any other nation, government, or political party -- it is in Christ. This hope is described by the author of Hebrews as "an anchor of the soul" that is "both sure and steadfast" (Hebrews 6:19). It is a certain hope because it is based on God, who is sovereign, faithful, omnipotent, and immutable. A hope based on a government filled with sinful human beings will surely disappoint. Instead, Christians have the confident expectation of an eternal home in heaven and that Christ will return soon to take the Church home. That is our "blessed hope" as believers (Titus 2:13).

"He which testified these things saith, 'Surely I come quickly.'

Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus."

- Revelation 22:20

The Lesson of the Seed

"So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth;

but God that giveth the increase."

- I Corinthians 3:7

 

Lilias Trotter

As believers, we are called to spread the gospel. In Scripture, this is likened to a farmer sowing and watering seeds (Matthew 13:3-23). The farmer, however, cannot force the seeds to germinate and grow into healthy plants or trees. All he can do is sow and water.

 

In a similar way, as we are yielded to Christ, He can use us to plant gospel seeds in the lives of those around us, and if He gives us opportunity to do so, "water" those seeds. But we cannot make the seeds grow -- we cannot make someone accept the gospel. Only God can give the increase. Our responsibility is to be yielded to Christ, willing to be used as He desires and "ready always to give an answer to to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is within you" (I Peter 3:15). That is our part. The person within whom we "plant" the "seed" must accept it himself.

 

"It does not follow that every seed will spring up: it is not so in the natural world. The plant's business is to scatter it, not withholding, not knowing which shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good; once scattered, the responsibility is transferred to the ground that receives it. But the aim of the plant - the goal of all the budding and blossoming and ripening - is that every seed should carry potential life. Thus are we responsible, not for the tangible results of our ministry to others, but for its being a ministry in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, such a ministry as will make those around us definitely responsible to God for accepting or rejecting the fullness of His salvation. If so, the 'signs following' will not be wanting. It will be to the one the savour of death unto death, and to the other the savour of life unto life, but 'whether they hear, or whether they will forbear, they shall know that there hath been a prophet among them.'"

- Lilias Trotter, Parables of the Cross

 

 

(for other installments in this series, see the lessons of the buttercup and the dandelion, and the husk of independence.)