"Our Thanksgiving to God" - #385

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Hello!

I hope you had a great weekend.

I spent most of Saturday at Life Church's worship conference.  I learned some great things from the workshops, enjoyed the music, and Pastor John Ruhlman's sermon was very good.  If you live in Temecula, I recommend visiting Life Church.  See http://getlife.tv for their web site.

JCSM switched servers last week and our Christmas songs were temporarily unavailable.  This problem has been fixed and the MP3s, chords, and lyrics are available, now.  Go to http://jcsm.org/Songs/Christmas/ for those files.

Do you need a laptop?  I'm selling my Toshiba Satellite 2675 DVD laptop on eBay.  It works well and it's pretty fast with Windows XP and the Pentium 3, 450 MHz processor.  I'm the original owner, so I know all about it in case you have a question.  See http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6724480519 for the auction.

I pray that you are blessed as you follow Christ.  Keep your eyes on Him.

Me and my guitar students have been blessed with the opportunity to play Christmas songs in my Great Grandma's rest home.  She is 100 years old.  Please pray that the kids learn the songs and do well.  It should be a fun performance.

On Tuesday, U2 releases their new album.  It's called, "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb."  In case you didn't know, Bono and The Edge are Christians and their band has been considered a "cross-over band" because they sing about Jesus and biblical principles (albeit, sometimes in pictures and riddles).  If their new album is anything like their previous ones, it will be very good.

Would you like a daily dose of godly wisdom?  Click http://jcsm.org/Wisdom.htm for JCSM's Quote of the Day!

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This is your ministry, so please feel free to link to JCSM and forward these devotions to your friends and family.  On JCSM, there are over 70,000 web pages of pictures, forums, midis, Bible lessons, humor, proverbial stories, links, devotions, poetry, prayer journals, and much more!

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Welcome to the new readers of this message!  Here is your Devotion, A Moment of Introspection, JCSM's Challenge, the Word of the Week, a faith-builder from "The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained," and the Quotes of the Week.  Have a fantastic week and God bless you!

Love in Christ,

Jason Gastrich

Contact Us: http://jcsm.org/contact.php

JCSM's Weekly Devotions (click here to listen!)

"Our Thanksgiving to God"

Psalm 50:14  "Offer to God thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the Most High."

Romans 1:20, 21  "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened."

2 Corinthians 4:7-9  "But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.  We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed."

James 1:17  "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning."

1 Thessalonians 5:18  "In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."

Insight: Do you have a spirit of thanksgiving?  Each day should be our thanksgiving as we give thanks to God for what He has done, what He has given us, what He is doing, and our eternal life.  Give thanks to God in the difficult times because He has a reason for all things.  When we forget to give thanks, we miss God's handiwork and we miss His blessings.

Prayer: "Thank you for being good, Lord.  Thank you for being worthy of our praise and devotion.  There is no other God like You.  Bless us and make us like You.  Forgive our sins.  Thank you for your mercy and grace.  Thank you for protecting us and loving us more than we understand or know.  Help us to continually give You thanks.  Thank you for all the simple things You give to us.  Help us to recognize them and give You praise.  In Jesus' name, Amen."

America's Foundation

John Brooks (1752-1825), a physician who became the Governor of Massachusetts, stated:

"I look back upon my humble life with humility.  I am sensible of many imperfections that cling to me.  I know that the present is neither the season nor the place to begin the preparation for death.

Our whole life is given us for this great object, and the work of preparation should be early commenced, and be never relaxed till the end of our days.  To God I can appeal that it has been my humble endeavor to serve Him with sincerity; and wherein I have failed, I trust in His grace to forgive.

I now rest my soul on the mercy of the adorable Creator, through the only meditation of His Son, our Lord."  - Dixwell's Memoirs, Stephen Abott Northrop, D.D., A Cloud of Witnesses (Portland, Oregon: American Heritage Ministries, 1987), p. 50.

A Moment of Introspection

Are you thankful to God or will it take a wake-up call before you thank Him?

List your blessings.  Recording them on paper will help you realize how much you're actually blessed.  God bless you as you meet this week's challenge!

to-daw (Hebrew, see Psalm 26:7): properly an extension of the hand, (by implication) avowal, (usually) adoration, specifically a choir of worshippers, confession, sacrifice of praise, thanks (-giving, offering)

The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained

"The Skeptic's Annotated Bible" claims:

Genesis 18:1 - God appears to Abraham, contrary to several Bible passages that say no one has ever seen God.

"The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained" responds:

Genesis 18:1 reads, "And the Lord appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre."  God is seen in the person of Jesus Christ.  God the Father was in Heaven.  However, Jesus spoke to Abraham in the form of an angel.  This is consistent with several other passages that contain a pre-Christ appearance of Jesus Christ.  In the Old Testament, He is often called "the angel of the Lord."  See Genesis 16:7.

(This explanation came from "The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained", by Jason Gastrich.  This book is on CD and explains over 3,000 difficulties regarding the entire Bible at http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.org.  There is also a 300 question workbook that accompanies the CD-ROM.)

Worship and praise is thanksgiving to God.

Thanksgiving to God should happen every day of the year.

Too many of us have filters in which we hear things and look to complain.

If we have the right perspective, we can ignore the peripheral things and concentrate on God.

The three things that keep us from being thankful are pride, a critical spirit, and not caring.

It's amazing how some people can turn everything into something negative.

Despite how the media and tabloids characterize our world, we live in a beautiful world.

Thanksgiving should be expressed.

The 1 in 10 lepers who were thankful in Luke 17 are representative of the amount of people in our society today who are thankful to the biblical God.

The people who are excited about God and growing spiritually are the ones who are thankful to Him.

2 out of every 3 people on Earth today are going to bed hungry.

Our thanksgiving should be expansive (e.g. blessings and burdens).

Paul experienced a lot of suffering and even wrote a lot of the scriptures from prison, but he still opened all of his known letters with thanksgiving.

God has His hand of safety on us.

You don't have to be thankful for problems, but you should be thankful in them.

Our thanksgiving is expected.

Thanksgiving is the mark of giving, growing, glowing Christians.

Try thanksgiving.

Can you be thankful without giving?

Can you give without being thankful?

These quotes came from God, me, and John Ruhlman.

Do you need more quotes?  We have thousands in our archives!  They are located here: http://quotes.jcsm.org.

These quotes can be used for sanctification and fun.  Most of them are directly based on scripture and scriptural principles.  Some of the quotes are humorous or rhetorical, others are written from sermons and Bible studies, and some are lyrics from songs.  If you’d like me to go into more detail on any of them, please email me.

Like most verses in the Bible, they can be debated.  To use what I’ve written in the most beneficial way, try and trace them back to the scriptures and apply the true principles to your life in a meaningful way!  Please don’t sell my quotes or publish them for profit.  If English is not your first language, you may not understand some of the quotes.  I'm sorry, but some of them are English metaphors and deal with multiple word meanings.  God bless you all!

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Along with getting support, we also give support!  JCSM regularly gives to churches, Christian ministries, and needy people.  Another function of this ministry is to do counseling.  We are always answering questions about life, the Lord and everything in between.  Lastly, we do a lot of research on religious topics on the internet and library.  You will definitely see the results of our hard work and your loving support, in the web pages, and in the weekly devotions!

For more about me and my service history, go to http://jcsm.org/misc/JasonGastrich.htm.

If you have never repented from your sins and believed, trusted, and accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, please email me!  I would love to share the gospel with you.  The Bible is very straightforward when it speaks about Heaven, Hell and eternal life.  If there is any doubt that you are going to Heaven when you die, please let me know today!  If you’d like to discover the biblical doctrine of salvation through Jesus Christ, please go here: Audio Gospel Message - http://www.jcsm.org/godsplan/TheGospel.mp3. or the Textual Gospel Message - http://gospel.jcsm.org.

Fishes and Loaves (FALO) is a great, missions organization.  They have helped many people embark on missions trips to the uttermost parts of the world.  If you are interested in missions, please visit http://www.gofalo.net.

Do you need to find a solid, Christian church?  I've attended numerous, Calvary Chapel churches and I've been very blessed by their Bible-based sermons, inspiring worship, and kind members.  If you don't have a home church, if you're traveling, or if you need to find a new church, I recommend visiting the following site and locating a Calvary Chapel near you: http://www.calvarychapel.org.

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