The Giving of Thanks

Thanksgiving is a time as we all know that as a nation we come together and give thanks for what God has done in our lives. Not only that, it is a time for the gathering of families all across America to come together and be with each other to count their blessings together! I love Thanksgiving because of the fact that as a family we put all differences aside and come together to give thanks and praise to the only one that has allowed us to have what we have in our lives. Now do we actually dwell on what God has done for us and who He is during Thanksgiving? If we are honest with ourselves, we don’t give much if any thanks or praise besides a longer prayer before we carve into our freshly cooked turkeys. This makes me stop and wonder if Thanksgiving, to many of us, is just a time of family, food, fellowship and football. What has Thanksgiving become to me and to you? Don’t forget the shopping that is now starting on Thanksgiving instead of black Friday! Is Thanksgiving really a time that is the giving of thanks to God for what He has allowed for us this past year or is it a time focused on food, family or whatever. I’m not saying that all of these are bad, but we need to keep the giving of thanks to God a priority!

"To all ye Pilgrims:

In as much as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, peas, beans, squashes, and garden vegetable, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as he has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience;

"Now I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and ye little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the day time, on Thursday, November ye 29th, of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three, and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to ye pastor and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings. William Bradford, Ye Governor of Ye Colony."
--William Bradford (1590-1657), Pilgrim father and second governor of Plymouth colony.

This was the first Thanksgiving in America! It was all because the pilgrims had a good harvest that year and they had kind of settled down in the “New World!” They wanted to take a day out of the year to thank God for all that He had done that year, giving them food, protection and friends or allies with the Indians! The year was 1621 and the first Thanksgiving lasted 3 days!

Read Psalm 95 and 100 this year, as it will help us to realize why we should give thanks and praise to God!

Love=Authority

Something that has been in my mind for the last couple of months has been a question that I ask myself when I pick up kids on the van route every Sunday and Wednesday. This question is simple but also complex! Why would a child come to church when they aren't forced to go to church, and they don't have the support they need at home to help them in life? I know the Lord is helping them come to church but so are the people in the church whether you know it or not, you are helping a child come over and over again to church without the support from their homes. How? One may ask. It is because the greatest thing we can show these children every Sunday and Wednesday is love. One major way we show this love and compassion is by exercising authority. Now, I am not saying that we yell at the kids and punish them because we are saying we love them that way. I am saying that at home they get little if any punishment at all for the things they do wrong so at church just by us exercising authority with them, it shows that we actually care enough about them to see them do right! This really never hit me like it has the last 3 months or so in ministry. I teach 18-24 kids every Sunday and 10-14 teens every Sunday and Wednesday and most of them are clamoring for some kind of authority in their lives. You know the best part about this is that we as Christians can show God's authority over sin and death with these kids. It all relates back to God! So through this, I have become better at understanding these kids and their needs. It has encouraged me to work with them even more and I pray it has for you too!

"Let Everything That Hath Breath Praise The Lord!"

In Psalms chapter 150, the psalmist is ending the book that everything should praise The Lord! It makes me think this question, in everything that happens in my life do I praise The Lord? I ask this because if everything in life is supposed to praise The Lord, then everything in my life should praise The Lord! God is a merciful and a gracious God! He is a greet and powerful God that made you and me! If we just look at that aspect, we know that we should praise him, but when we see what he has done for us then we know that He is due all the praise we can give God! So this month of November think about how often you praise God for what He has done in your life. When we really examine our lives we realize one thing, that we don't paise Him enough! 

The First Post!

I hope that this blog will become effective not only for teens but also for Christians alike! I pray that God will use this to encourage and strengthen first of all the teens of Crossroads and next strengthen someone in need! Please pray for our youth group!