Thanksgiving message using two thanksgiving scriptures

Welcome to episode 225, In the Beginning Was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the Word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.

Welcome to episode 225. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I am coming to you semi-live. I am really not live. This is a taped process and everybody knows this, but I just want to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving. If you are not in the United States, then you may or may not understand the significance of this holiday. But this is by far my absolute most favorite holiday because it has nothing to do with receiving presents. It has nothing to do with Easter Bunny, no stinking bunny, no big fat red guy in a suit. There is nothing that is associated with Thanksgiving other than being thankful and giving thanks. And it is such an extraordinary thing to just come together as families. At least in my life, because this is Thanksgiving, I don't want this to be real long. I just wanna give you a couple of scriptures that just, I just absolutely love and I go to a lot in my walk with God. The first one is one that I pray all the time. It is one I've told you about in episode 5, if you can believe it. And I now thank God that I remembered to do this on episode 5, because it was my 5 daily prayers, and you can go back. I'm going to link to that episode in the show notes. This one thing is found in Psalm 100, verse 4: Enter his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. Be thankful to him and bless his name. And this right here is where I start every day. I just thank God for everything that he's done in my life. I just come to him in the morning This is first thing in the morning when I get up. I go sit on the couch. That's my little, quote, prayer closet. But I just get up by myself, and I just sit on the couch, and I just thank God for everything that he's done in my life. And then I start praising his name, and I start glorifying him, and I start trying to figure out a little song that I try to sing in my head. Sometimes it's not very scriptural, and I'm like, "God, what am I doing singing that song?" Anyway, I'm not totally redeemed. I'm a little bit different on some instances, but when I get in my head and there's a stupid song going on, then I'll just— me and God will just sit there and shake. I'm sure God shakes his head and goes, "Greg, what are you doing?" But I get into a praise and worship song in my head, and I try to praise God in the morning, and I try to enter his gates with thanksgiving and enter his courts with praise. And I believe these 5 prayers that I've done "religiously," and I'm putting up air quotes, but I do this almost every day. And I've got to tell you, it has changed my life. And I've talked to people that have done this, and it changes their lives too. And it is something that's easy to do. There's nothing to these 5 prayers, and they're all based on Scripture. So I'm going to link to that in the show notes. That's episode 5, and it's the 5 daily prayers that I do. And the next scripture that I'm going to talk about, and it's going to be the last one that I talk about today, it's found in Ephesians, and it's in 4, and it starts in 4. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentleness 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 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, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. I'm telling you, this scripture, these scriptures right here help every day. These— rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice. You know, there's things that go on in my life, and as well I'm sure with your life, that you don't want to just say, oh, praise God for that. And I, I'm not going to lie to you and tell you, oh, I'm always praising God. I'm trying to be relatable in my walk. And when I get around people, you know, it just fires me up when someone's just so heavenly minded they're no earthly good because they're just always, "Oh, praise God! Oh, praise the Lord! Oh, praise God!" In a fallen and hurting world, that's going to be more of a turn-off than a help to draw people to the body of Christ, in my humble opinion. You can be thankful and rejoicing inside without saying it on the outside all the time. Now, if you're with another brother or sister and you just want to rejoice, I'm not against that at all. And I don't want to come across as being super super holy or super non-spiritual or whatever the word I'm looking for. But you need to rejoice in the Lord always and to be anxious for nothing, but in all things through prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. There, there's that word again, with thanksgiving. Just thank God when you're asking him for things, when you're asking him, look, if there's things that are just making you just a little bit nervous and anxious, and I'll just let you in on a little secret, my wife and I We're kind of— we weren't really struggling, but we had to go to prayer and we had to just get after this thing with all of this mandate garbage that's going on. She works in the medical profession and she's had the COVID I've told you that we've had it. I think we both had it a couple times, but we've had the COVID disease. I know for a fact in July and we through August, and we got our blood tested in August and we've got the antibodies., and so we're walking around with antibodies. I'm just not— I'm not against the vaccine, and if you've gotten the vaccine, I'm for it, but I have already had the natural antibodies. I've got the immunities, and I don't understand what difference it makes whether I take the shot or don't take the shot. If I've got the same antibodies that you've got, what difference does it make if I get the shot or don't get the shot? Well, my wife is feeling the same way I was. She didn't want the shot, because she already had the natural antibodies. Well, they were going to fire her because of this presidential mandate, because since she works in the healthcare industry, their company takes Medicare and Medicaid, and the government has said, "Hey, you've got to be vaccinated if you're going to keep working here." Since we're both Jesus fanatics, we asked for a religious accommodation, and praise God, we got it. But in all of this turmoil and all of this angst that goes on with the daily life, there's always something that's going to be a struggle, and there's always something. But we were thankful that we had each other. We were thankful that we had the Bible. We were thankful that we had our family. There was a lot of things to be thankful in, and we just turned it over into God's hands, and we said, God, if they want to fire us, let them fire us. So that's just a little testimony of what's going on in our life, and I want to encourage you just to be thankful, not just on Thursday, not just on Thanksgiving, but every day. Find a reason to be thankful in your life and tell God about it. Thank God that he has given his son to you and I, to the world, as a ransom for sin. He gave his life for you and I. All we need to do is just thank him and show him our gratitude by actually living for him and trying to help build his kingdom. Well, I'm gonna stop right there. God, I thank you so much. For your word. I thank you, Jesus, for coming and walking on in this world just like I walk in this world, except you did it perfect. And God, I want to thank you for showing me how to live a perfect life. And I also want to thank you, God, for not mashing me when I mess up, probably daily. But God, I thank you for sending your Holy Spirit. And Holy Spirit, thank you for leading and guiding and directing me and this listener. I pray that this listener would have a great rest of this 2021 year, and I pray that year 2022 is even better and we can glorify your name even more. Lord, we thank you, we love you, we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, happy Thanksgiving, y'all, and I look forward to visiting with you on the next episode.

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