Greg Ryan shares a Thanksgiving devotional grounded in Scripture. He walks through Psalm 100, Philippians 4:4-8 on rejoicing with thanksgiving, and Revelation 12:11 on overcoming through Christ's blood and personal testimony. Ryan urges listeners to stay grateful regardless of circumstances and use the year's end to draw others toward Jesus.
Chapters
Welcome to episode 329, and today is Thanksgiving here in America, and I want to give a quick Thanksgiving message. It's based on scripture. It's what I do just about every single day. In fact, I can honestly say I probably do this every day. It's based on one of the 5 prayers way back, I think in episode 5, way back at the beginning of this, where I did 5 prayers that I do every day, and one of them is you enter his gates with thanksgiving and you enter his courts with praise. But before I get started, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Hey, if you're watching this or you're listening to this on Thanksgiving Day, God bless you. I hope you're having a great day. This is my favorite holiday of all of the holidays in the year. I love Thanksgiving because it is just about being thankful. There's not a lot of presents exchanged. We do get to eat I like to eat. We get to be around family and friends, and there's just an atmosphere of Thanksgiving. I hope your family's like my family. We get together and we try to enjoy our company as best we can. We're all different people, but that's one of the things. God has us as family so that we can all come together, and when things happen or somebody needs help, usually the first place most people go is family. But we're not going to talk about that. I'm not going to chase that rabbit. I want to talk about being thankful and where we find that in the Bible, because this is a Bible study and we are talking about Thanksgiving. We're going to go to Psalm 100:4-5. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. Be thankful to him and bless his name, for the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his truth endures to all generations. And that is a wonderful Psalm, Psalm 100. You could read the whole Psalm, but in 4 and 5, it— we're told how to enter into his gates. We are to go into God's presence with thanksgiving, with praise. We are to be thankful, and his truth is for all generations. God gave his truth, which is Jesus, for all generations. And you shall know the truth and And the truth shall make you free. When you come to know the truth, you will experience true freedom. And I want to encourage you, I'm so thankful to God that he sent his Son and that I accepted him. And I want to encourage you to do the same thing. Dig into the Bible, get into the word of God, and be thankful that you are alive. It's in such a time as this. And I want to go to one more scripture. This is going to be kind of a quick message because it's Thanksgiving and I don't want to tie up your Thanksgiving. Listen to this, but I do want to remind you that it is okay and God really likes it when his kids are thankful. Let's go to Philippians 4:4-8. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say, rejoice! Let the gentleness of God be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whether things are of good report, if there is any virtue, if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. And I want to stop there. That is wonderful advice. Paul is saying rejoice in the Lord always. Again, he says rejoice, and he is just saying, hey, be thankful. When you're talking to God, don't just be complaining and griping all the dang time. Just be thankful. And when you're praying, that's conversation. We really haven't talked a lot about prayer. We're gonna one day but that's just you and God's communicating. When you're asking things of God, just be thankful. Just come at God with a thankful heart, with a thankful spirit, and it is going to be good. Even if things don't get any better here on earth for you or your family, know if you've got Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior that we have a whole nother world. This is not our world. And just be thankful. This is as close to hell as you and I will ever see. We have got this opportunity. We still have breath in our lungs. We can proclaim the good news. We can dictate to other people what we say. Again, Revelation 12:11, my favorite scripture: They overcome him, the punk, by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. We have been given a task. We are to proclaim the good news that Jesus Christ is Lord. We are to be thankful that he died for all and that he's poured out his grace for all. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. We have got to proclaim it. God gave that job to you and I. And just be thankful that you're still here, you're still alive and well, and get after it. I want to encourage you to use the rest of this year— 2022 is when I'm recording this— Use the rest of this year to encourage, empower, and inspire people to turn towards God and to accept Jesus as Lord. I want to encourage you. I want to thank you for being a part of my audience. I want to thank you for being a fanatic. If you've made it this far, I know you are. And I want to thank you, and I look forward to visiting with you either here on earth one day or in heaven for eternity. I am so thankful for God and what he's done in my life. And God is no respecter of persons. If he'll do it for me, he'll do it for you. And I just want to tell you thank you one more time, and I want to pray. I want to finish up by thanking God. God, I thank you so much for your word. I thank you for you sending your son to die on the cross for my screw-ups, Lord. I thank you that this listener or this watcher is also involved in your word and is has been forgiven of everything. Jesus, you have done it all, and we want to thank you one more time for everything you've done. Holy Spirit, thank you for never leaving us nor forsaking us. And Father God, thank you for this great plan of salvation that you have brought, brought to pass. And we want to thank you one more time, Lord, for just being you. Thank you for being love. God, we thank you, we love you, we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you in the next episode. Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com.
