Thanksgiving Day: Thanks-living and Thanks-giving

All around the world today, Christians are still being abused, beaten, arrested, imprisoned, and executed. Just like Paul wrote to exhort Christians whom he had never met to remember his chains, persecuted saints in other countries are asking us to do the same for them. That’s why we have the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. It is set aside for Christians in the West to remember and identify with the persecutions and sufferings of our brethren around the world. After all, there were more Christians martyred for their faith in the twentieth century than in all the previous nineteen centuries combined!

Paul reminded the Corinthian Christians of our spiritual unity in Christ: “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it” (1 Corinthians 12:26). Likewise, the writer of Hebrews exhorted his Jewish Christian readers to “remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering” (Hebrews 13:3).

We cannot fully understand God’s sovereignty in allowing some of His children to suffer poverty and persecution, while others experience peace and prosperity. However, we do clearly know that “from everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked” (Luke 12:48).

If your local church is not already involved in this special prayer focus for our persecuted brethren, take the initiative and be an advocate for our brethren in the suffering church around the world. Say of them what Paul said of the suffering saints at Thessalonica: “Among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring” (2 Thessalonians 1:4).

So, please unite your love and prayers with all of our brethren around the world who are experiencing the “participation in his sufferings” (Philippians 3:10).

51

Thanks-Living and Thanks-Giving

Thanksgiving Day—Fourth Thursday in November

Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. 2 Corinthians 9:6

It’s Thanksgiving, one of our favorite American holidays. For millions of us it will be a family-oriented day filled with lots of delicious food like turkey, ham, dressing, homemade rolls, mashed potatoes and gravy, yams, cranberry sauce, green beans, and pumpkin pie.

Certainly every citizen should be giving thanks for the peace and prosperity that we continue to experience and enjoy as a nation. America is still the land of opportunity like no other country on earth.

I also firmly believe that it is the Judeo-Christian foundation that our nation was established upon that makes America great. And a spirit of thanksgiving is one of the most important foundational virtues of our American society. It is true that the attitude of gratitude is one of the distinguishing marks of every true American citizen— and certainly of every authentic Christian.

However, in our increasingly consumer-oriented society, I fear that many of the simple virtues that helped make America great are being eroded away. Millions of us are feverishly rushing to and fro in the pursuit of things. We increasingly consume more and more for ourselves in the elusive search for that permanent satisfaction that we never can find through money and materialism.

We often live with the fantasy and illusion that rationalizes, “If I made more, I would give more.” In reality, the more we earn, the more our standard of living goes up—often further leveraged by debt. The single greatest enemy of our standard of giving is our standard of living! That’s why the two greatest enemies of the cause of Christ locally and globally are affluence and apathy. This means that we are indulgent in our own greeds while we are indifferent to others’ needs.

52