“In everything give thanks

for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”

(1 Thessalonians 5:18)

Thursday is Thanksgiving.  Families and friends will gather together for food, fellowship, and fun; and hopefully squeeze in some genuine thankfulness to God for His great blessings toward us.  Some people will have a harder time with genuine thankfulness this year because of thinking about the things they don’t have rather than the things they do have.  God’s will is that we be thankful for what we have.  We can fall into the trap of comparing what we have to what others have and suddenly find ourselves ungrateful for what God has given us.  God has placed us where we are and given us what we have for a specific reason.  He has given us exactly what we need to fulfill His will for our lives.  Take time this week to make a list of everything God has given you, no matter how small.  Then, thank God for how He has blessed and provided for you.

November 24, 2009

Blessings From God This Past Sunday

Even with a rainy day, the hand of God was extremely obvious in blessings this past Sunday.  Although several of our people were out sick and probably some weren’t able to come because of the rain, God still gave us wonderful services and MANY visitors.  Actually, we only had two families visiting Sunday morning, but one family had seven children and the other had five.  So, we had 16 first-time visitors Sunday!  One family was vacationing here from South Alabama and had made their plans to attend our church while on vacation.  What a blessing to meet other like-minded Baptists who search for the right church to attend while on vacation!  And I thank God for giving us a ministry on the internet to be able to reach people throughout the world.  

Sunday night Brother Steve Lusk, a former member of our church, preached.   Brother Steve and his wife Meta were always a blessing to our church before he was ordained and began pastoring other churches.  He preached from James 4:14 about things we should appreciate.  The sermon was a help to everyone there, and I appreciate God giving him the message.

Tonight we are having our mid-week service.  We are having it a day early this week in order to make things easier for all the folks who will be working hard to prepare Thanksgiving dinners for their families.  I am looking forward to teaching on “Twenty Reason To Have Thanksgiving.”  I normally have trouble getting in a three-point message, so I can’t wait to try to cover twenty points.  The good thing is that I have an extra day to finish it! (Just kidding)

I hope you have a great week and a wonderful Thanksgiving.  Ask God to lay someone on your heart to invite to church.  Call or write those members that you missed last Sunday, and let's look forward to great services next week.

I Love You,

Brother Richard

Johnny's  Mother looked out the window and noticed Him  "playing church" with their  cat.
  
He  had the cat sitting quietly and he was preaching  to it.  She smiled and went about her  work.

A while later she heard loud meowing  and hissing and ran back to the open window to  see Johnny baptizing the cat in a tub of  water.
She called out, "Johnny, stop that!  The cat is afraid of water!"

Johnny looked up  at her and said,
"He should have thought  about that before he joined my  church."