Do Something to Show How Thankful You Really Are

Celebrating Thanksgiving moves a Christian beyond eating good food, or sitting around to be served, or looking around to see whose thanksgiving dinner we can crash and get free food.

For instance, today Christian's can see the hurting, angry, and frustrated people in Ferguson, Missouri.

After the opportunist destroy all they can, where will the Seniors and other community members go to get food and services?  What will the children do about school?  What will the community based business owners and employees do now that there businesses are burned up.  Now that jobs are burned up and destroyed, will the criminal prostesters come back and rebuild the local economy?  Will they pay the bills of the people already struggling to make ends meet?

In the midst of all the senseless destruction, Christians are praying for the Brown Family, and The Wilson Family.

In all the turmoil, two families are hurting deeply, injustices in the criminal justice system still need to be fixed, the Ferguson Police Department still needs to hire more officers of color to reflect the community they are supposed to serve, and this nation still needs healing from our deeply imbedded sin of racial hatred.

Christians today cannot eat all day and forget the needs around us.  Yes, we stop and thank God for all our blessings, but today is not all about us.  We are sober, and we realize that God blesses us so that we can be a blessing to others.

At the heart of Thanksgiving for the Christian, is God blessing us so that we can move outside of ourselves and bless others through our service.

In John 12:24-26, Jesus said:

24 "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

25 "He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal.

26 "If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him. Die to yourself (total focus on you must die) today and thankfully serve someone else.  Help someone today, stop and pray for someone else, share your resources with others, do something to show how thankful you really are! God Bless, Pastorbkennedy (MZO)