Give Thanks to God EVERY Day!

    This week, each day you are blessed with this week, take time to pause and say thank you to the Lord.

• When you wake up - thank Him for watching over you through the night; thank Him and praise Him for His lovingkindness in bringing you into a new day (Psalm 92:1-2)
• When you pick up your Bible to read - thank God for preparing and preserving His Word so you can have your own copy to read it anytime, anywhere. Thank Him for your ability to gain knowledge, comfort, and strength from reading and study (2 Timothy 2:16-17, Romans 15:4).
• When you get up and walk from one place/room to another - thank Him for your health and your ability to move (Acts 17:28).
• When you get in your car and drive from one place to another - thank Him for your prosperity (Deuteronomy 8:18a).
• When you take a forkful/spoonful/handful of food - thank Him for the abundance (Psalm 136:23-26). 
• When you step outside and feel the searing heat or the pelt of raindrops - thank Him for shelter (Isaiah 32:18-19). 
• When you have a negative interaction with a friend/co-worker - thank Him for giving you trials to strengthen you and opportunity to apply His instruction (1 Corinthians 15:58; 16:13-14, Matthew 5:11-16). 
• When you have positive interaction with a friend/co-worker - thank Him for the joys that give buoyancy to your spirit (Proverbs 16:24). 
• When your husband/kids ask (or you ask yourself), 'What's for dinner?' for what feels like one too many times - thank Him for your spouse, your children, and your ability to prepare a meal for them (Proverbs 31:15, 26-31).
• When you clean your house and do the dishes - thank God for the abundant stewardship He has granted you and the ability to fulfill it (Luke 16:10a, Proverbs 11:13, also consider 1 Timothy 6:17-19, 1 Peter 4:9)
• When you finish your day and you bow your head in prayer - thank God for His faithfulness (Psalm 92:1-2). He was there every moment you needed Him, His help and HIs promises remained true the whole day! Thank Him, praise Him, and then thank Him all the more!!  

    Thank God today, for each and every thing that you do today and again each day this week! See how that changes your day, your week. See how that helps your perspective. See how that helps you reflect God's light each day!

You can do it! So can I!!

~ Photo credit belongs to Meagan Fairchild ~

Thankful For God's Faithfulness

    Have you considered God's faithfulness? Have you thanked Him for His constancy? Have you praised Him for being your Rock?

    GOD IS THE ONLY CONSTANT in this temporal life!

    I encourage you to read the whole of Psalm 139, but right now please consider these statements selected from that psalm:

    "O LORD, You have searched me and known me, You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off, You comprehend my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.... Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence?... Marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well... How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; when I awake, I am still with You...."

    God is ALWAYS. God is FOREVER ALWAYS.

• Thank Him today for His faithfulness - it never fails! (Psalm 36:5-7)
• Thank Him for the truth of His promises - they are real! (Psalm 18:30)
• Thank Him for the readiness of His help - it is constant! (Hebrews 4:16, Acts 17:27)
• Thank Him for being the only true source of help and encouragement - help and encouragement from an untainted source! The help you receive from the Lord is pure and holy! The guidance you receive from His word is pure and peaceable! (James 3:17) 

    With that in mind, please consider this:

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths." (Proverbs 3:5-6 NKJV)

• 'Trust in the LORD with ALL your heart' - Trust Him! Do things His way and see how blessed your days become!!
• 'Do not lean on your own understanding' - we only know part of the story, we don't have the complete understanding of all things as God does. Do not think that you know better than God - that is an impossibility! Simply understand that you don't know (and don't always need to know) the whole of any situation, but God does know the whole and he asks you to submit in trust to Him!
• 'In all your ways, acknowledge God' - thank Him for His care, His help, your hope. Thank Him!! Acknowledge His provision - life, breath and all things! (Acts 17:25)
• 'He will make your paths straight' - God's way is the best way. You have heard me say this time and time again, but it is true! When we envision the path to God there are many opportunities (provided by the world) to tempt us to step off the path, but when we truly acknowledge God as our Rock, our Provider, and our Salvation, the desire to step off the path is minimal to non-existent! (James 4:8)

Thank God today!! Thank Him for His constancy! Thank Him for His care! Thank Him for His instruction and guidance!

"It is good to give thanks to the Lord, And to sing praises to Your name, O Most High; to declare Your lovingkindness in the morning, and Your faithfulness every night..." (Psalm 92:1-2 NKJV)

Thankful For The Men in the Church

    We've been blessed with another new day - let's use some it in thinking on reasons to be thankful to God!

    Today I am thankful for the men in the church.

    I am thankful that there are men who love God enough to want to worship Him as God instructed - in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). They desire to worship Him and study His word with others enough to attend whenever the church gathers together.

    These men step out of their quiet comfort zones to...

•     ...lead our thoughts in prayer (1 Corinthians 14:15-16)
•     ...help us prepare our minds to partake of the Lord's Supper each Sunday (1 Corinthians 11:23-29)
•     ...lead our congregational singing (Colossians 3:16)
•     ...teach our Bible classes (Ephesians 4:11-15)
•     ...prepare thought-provoking talks, encouraging those in attendance to live right before God (Ephesians 4:29, 2 Timothy 3:16-17) during midweek meeting times
•     ...prepare sermons week after week that prick our hearts, help our service, inform us more and more of God, His holiness, and His blessed way (2 Timothy 4:2-5)!

    I am thankful for their example, their dedication, and their faith. May God bless each and every man who diligently seeks Him (Hebrews 11:6, James 1:21-25)!

"My voice You shall hear in the morning, O LORD; In the morning I will direct it to You, and I will look up. ...let all those rejoice who put their trust in You; Let them ever shout for joy, because You defend them; let those also who love Your name be joyful in You. For You, O LORD, will bless the righteous; with favour You will surround him as with a shield." (Psalm 5:3,11-12 NKJV)

Pause for a moment today, and each day this week, as the Lord wills, and say a prayer for the men in your congregation. Pray for their spiritual strength and integrity, that they may have steadfast hearts that diligently seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33) all their days. Thank God for them and ask that His wonderful care be upon them as they humbly obey His instruction for leadership and service.

You can do it! So can I!!

Thankful for God's Unchanging Truth

    With it being a new month, I would like to begin a new series: Thankfulness. We have so much to be thankful for! Over the next few weeks, if the Lord wills, we will look at passages that express thankfulness and take a closer look at all the things we need to appreciate and give thanks for! 

    If you are reading this, God has already blessed you with a new day, sufficient health, eyesight, ability to use your hands, a mind able to function and understand!! God is SO good!! To Him be the glory forever and ever!!

"Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, sing praises!

For God is the King of all the earth; Sing praises with understanding."

(Psalm 47:6-7 NKJV)

    Thinking about this new topic made me consider my family history - relatives who changed our family for the better because of their choice to seek God and follow His truth! Today I am thankful to God for the people in my family history who, when they found God’s truth, embraced it as truth, and chose to follow Him the rest of their days.

Let me begin at the beginning…

    Around the age of 17, my Grampa (Victor) Sullivan was desperate for shelter/work (it was the 1920’s) and he became a hired farm hand for his Aunt Lizzy (Elizabeth (Eller) Brown) and Uncle George Eller. He was given room and board and was firmly informed by Aunt Lizzy that “You’re going to church with me on Sunday.”

    So Victor went with Aunt Lizzy to church services each Sunday and heard God’s truth, straight from the Bible. Later, Victor obeyed the gospel by being baptized into Christ and began his walk as a Christian.

    Grampa married a beautiful Anglican girl, Mary McDonough. They eventually studied the Bible together with Art & Lillian Corbett (my husband’s grandparents!) and my Gramma discovered God’s truth in the Bible and was baptized into Christ. Together they worshipped with the church in Jordan (when they met in a building that stood where Snure Cemetery is now), and helped build the current meeting place on Hwy 8.

    The church grew to well over 150 members in Jordan and the elders at the time decided to see if other congregations could be started around Ontario. So they placed ads in newspapers offering free Bible Correspondence Courses (Bible studies via mail), to places like Haliburton, Bancroft, South River, and Wellandport.

    An ad was placed in a Dunnville newspaper (to find people near Wellandport), a paper which my Great Aunt Pearl Nicholls read. My Great Aunt answered the ad and shared the course with her husband Glenn and her sister-in-law (my grandmother) Marjorie (Nicholls) Gare.

    My grandmother was a Free Methodist and had been married to a well known Free Methodist preacher until his death. When she studied the Bible, she realized that it was God’s Word, and she desired to do what she read there, and she was baptized.

    My Grandmother Gare worshipped with the church in Wellandport (when they met in the rented Oddfellows Hall) until her passing a few years later.

    My mother and father met each other while worshipping with the church in Wellandport. And the rest, they say, is history! smile emoticon

    The same truth that convinced my Grampa’s Aunt Lizzy, was the same truth that convinced him and my Gramma Sullivan, it was the same truth that convinced my Grandmother Gare (and my Great Aunt Pearl & Great Uncle Glenn Nicholls AND my Great Aunt Sis & Great Uncle Allen Nicholls), it was the same truth that convinced my Dad and my Mom, it was the same truth that convinced me (and my siblings), and my husband (and his siblings), and it’s the same truth that convinced both our daughters that they needed to obey God’s Word by being baptized into Christ!

“...the word of the LORD endures forever.” 

(Isaiah 40:7-8, 1 Peter 1:24-25 NKJV)

    I am thankful for my Great Aunt Lizzy and my Great Aunt Pearl! I thank God for them, as well as the elders at Jordan who wanted to spread God’s word province-wide… I’m thankful for gospel preachers like John Whitfield, Norman Midgette, Hubert Showalter, and John Witt, who preached God’s truth and studied with many people, showing them God’s way, straight from the Bible!

    Thank you Heavenly Father for Your enduring Word!!

“I thought about my ways, and turned my feet to Your testimonies.

I made haste, and did not delay to keep Your commandments.”

(Psalm 119:59-60 NKJV)

    What is your family history? Are you from a long line, a short line, or are you the one who changed your family for the better by being the first to obey the gospel? No matter which it may be take time to appreciate those who helped you learn the Truth so you could obey the gospel; thank God for them and thank Him, also, for His unchanging, powerful Word!!

You can do it! So can I!!