In this Thanksgiving Eve devotional, M.t. Clark delivers a spoken meditation that blends personal testimony, biblical exposition, practical warnings, and prayer. He begins by describing a photo of sunlight reflected on the Champlain Canal, captured by his wife Tammy Lynn Clark, and uses it as a metaphor for letting God’s light shine through believers. Clark emphasizes that Thanksgiving should be an act of worship directed to God, not merely a secular celebration of food, football, or family. He warns listeners about the common Thanksgiving Eve pitfalls—excessive alcohol, risky travel, and potential regret—drawing from his own pre‑Christ, pre‑recovery experiences. He then expounds on Colossians 1:20‑22 and Romans 8:1, highlighting Christ’s reconciling work and the believer’s freedom from condemnation. Clark urges listeners to share the gospel with friends and family, especially during the holiday season. He promotes his ministry resources, including mt4christ.org, a Dietrich Bonhoeffer discipleship series, the M.t. For Christ 247 podcast, and his YouTube channel. The devotional concludes with an extended prayer covering personal gratitude, safety for travelers, specific prayer requests (e.g., Bob Griffin’s cancer treatment), and a plea for God’s guidance and protection on Thanksgiving Eve.
Chapters
To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning. Today's photo of light— of the light of the sun reflecting off the windows of a house onto the waters of the Champlain Canal comes to us from my beloved wife, Tammy Lynn Clark, who captured the beauty of this reflection while out on an impromptu stroll at at Hudson Crossing Park in Schuylerville, New York, back on November 11th. Well, it's Wednesday. It's the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, so happy Friday to the vast majority of us that will have the day off tomorrow to gather with family and friends to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, watch football, feast on mass quantities of food, and oh yeah, to give thanks I point this out because sometimes in the preparation for the holiday, we forget what its original purpose of the Thanksgiving holiday is. Anyone referring to tomorrow as Turkey Day, I'm talking to you. And since we are pointing things out, I would also point out that our thanks, just like our faith, has to have an object. And whether you have great faith or little faith in the Lord, you should recognize that ultimately whatever thanks we would like to give tomorrow should eventually be humbly left before the throne of grace. I know you may be truly thankful for the food, for your family, for your job, for your friends, for the day off, for your health, for football, for the universe, and for the host that put together your holiday feast. But above and beyond all these things is the Lord God Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, and the author of all life, and the sovereign King who shapes its history. So ultimately, while we should express our appreciation for all of these other things that the Lord made possible, we should only give our thanks to God. So really, Thanksgiving in essence should be one of worshiping the Lord, a true holiday in the sense of a holy day. But you know what's great about worshiping the Lord is that it doesn't have to be weird. We don't have to put on special outfits or go to a designated site with holy relics or trappings to worship God. We can give thanks to the Lord, praise his holy name, and worship him in the most mundane trappings and the humblest of clothes. That includes your living room Lazy Boy with your feet up as you enjoy the company of many or just by yourself. Our thanks, our worship to the Lord only requires our hearts and minds be set on him. You can meditate upon, worship, or give thanks to the Lord for hours or just a few moments, but he is to be the object of them all. I like to point out the obvious in this day and age because our holidays have increasingly become secular celebrations of general good tidings and well wishes that increasingly fail to honor the Lord. This is even more expressed in the anticipation of tomorrow's holiday and how it will be— will play out this evening. As solemn or relaxed as our Thanksgiving gathering may be tomorrow, for many, the true celebration of Thanksgiving will be tonight, as scores of people will be returning home and will be gathering with friends to catch up over mass quantities of alcohol and drugs before having to suffer through another forced family the event. The restrictive duty of honoring mother and father or gathering with family close and not so close can cause us to really want to kick loose the night before Thanksgiving. Kick loose and the night before Thanksgiving can be one of the wildest nights of partying of the year, or at least it used to be in my pre-Christ, pre-recovery experience. Add to the contemplation of another repressive family gathering The fact that many will be taking to the skies, the highways, and byways to travel a considerable distance to arrive at the Thanksgiving destination. And it's no wonder people may want to blow off some steam tonight. So it is my prayer that the Lord protect all of us and that we all allow him to guide us in his ways in peace tonight. There's nothing wrong with meeting with friends this evening, but the emphasis should be placed on the joy of the gathering and the safety of ourselves and those we love. And let's keep it real and not doing anything that will cause us guilt, shame, pain, or regrets. I wish I could say that hangovers were the only pain I experienced for Thanksgiving, uh, from Thanksgiving Eves of old, so I speak from experience. And what may seem like a good idea tonight may not look so good in the light of day on Thanksgiving morning. Road rage, drunk drivers, shameful liaisons, and other— and old vendettas reignited into verbal and physical altercations are all possible scenarios tonight. So let's be careful out there. I am thankful to God for keeping me safe thus far and for leading me into a life that is, is guided by his light rather than my darkness. So let me encourage you to either start or to continue to keep walking and talking with God. His way is the best way to live, and placing your faith in Jesus Christ really is the only way to live. So put your trust in him and follow him to where he wants to take you. When you walk in his light, it shines in in your life. The light reflected off of that house in today's photo is shining as bright as the sun itself. I had to look twice to realize that this wasn't just a sunset photo. My wife captured a scene highlighting a reflection of the sun on the waters of Champlain Canal off of the ref— of a reflection of the sun on the windows of a house. The sun is not even in this photo, just its reflection. So just like today's photo, let's allow the Lord's light in us to shine in us for all the world to see this Thanksgiving by expressing wisdom, peace, and love. All these shining reflections made me think of the Old Testament prayer blessing in Numbers 6:22-26, where the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, This is the way you shall bless the children of Israel. say to them, "The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace." And so it is my prayer that all who read or hear this message have the Lord shine His face upon you and your families this Thanksgiving, and that you receive His grace and peace. God bless you and keep you. Amen. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verses are Colossians 1:20-22, and they say, and through him God recognized— reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ's blood on the cross. This includes you, who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault. Today's verses teach us that Christ reconciles us to God No matter how far away we once were from God, we who because of our evil thoughts and actions were once his enemies have been brought into his presence and have been made holy and blameless because of Jesus. I would say a parallel to these verses, uh, verses, or a nice conclusion would be my life verse, which is Romans 8: Romans 8:1, which says, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those— to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus because we have been reconciled to the Father, because all our sins have been forgiven and we have been made holy and blameless. We can walk in the Spirit because when we put our faith In Christ, we were reconciled to God, and he gave us a new life and the indwelling presence— the indwelling Holy Spirit to keep us forever in his presence. That's good news. And even though the holiday is tomorrow, we should be thanksgiving to the Lord every single day from here to eternity for what he has done for us through through Jesus Christ. This, this, this is life-changing, spectacular news that never gets old. So if you get a few minutes of quiet time with a family member or friend who doesn't know the truth of Jesus, or, or hasn't fully realized who they are in Christ, take the time to tell them and to encourage them to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior or to claim the wonders of their new life by making the decision to follow him in spirit and in truth. As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org, where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we continue sharing from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Discipleship, also known as The Cost of Discipleship. And today we conclude, conclude with a conclusion of Matthew 7, which will highlight the verses 7:24 through 29 and highlight Dietrich Bonhoeffer's thoughts on those verses. So if you want to see that resource, go to m.tforchrist.org and you'll see that at the end of today's blog post. And also at the end of today's blog post, you'll, you'll see An encouragement to join our Victory Over the Darkness, Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ series of discipleship classes via the M.t. Clark 247 podcast. We provide a link to the podcast on Podbean, but it is available also on Apple and all the other podcasts out there, and even audible.com. So we encourage you to check out, subscribe, and share the podcast with whoever And we also share a link to our YouTube channel, which just happens to be the same name, M.t. For Christ 247 on YouTube. And so we invite people to check that out and subscribe and follow or whatever, uh, to those, to those outlets, uh, basically, and to enjoy our encouragements, uh, 6 days a week, our Bible studies on Sundays, and whatever other special projects I decide to bring to the, uh, to the podcast. Um, tonight I intend to— and I have prepared and intend to give the 12th installment of the Bonhoeffer series, Bonhoeffer's Discipleship. Um, the PowerPoint's all ready to go, and I've read through it, and there don't seem to be any errors, so we'll see what happens in see what's happening. Lord willing, we'll complete that teaching this evening and upload it. With, like I said, Lord willing, because we're facing the uncertainty of one moment to the next and the uncertainty of data in the great white north of Easton, New York, where I'll be staying at my countryside home, Lord willing, with my beloved lovely wife, Tammy Lynn. And I'm looking forward to the end of the work day, but we do have to get through it first. And, uh, so we're going to need to pray about that. So let's do it. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we, we thank you for last night's Zoom meeting with our, uh, final meeting with the Freedom in Christ course guys, uh, for the year. And, uh, we just thank you for everything you've done through that. And we thank you for everything you've done in our lives. Um, you've led us away from the darkness of Thanksgiving Eves past into the new life where we can have, um, joy and peace without alcohol and drugs and without sexual immorality. Um, this is all because of you, um, because you, you showed us who you were and, and led us in the way we should go. And amazingly, you gave us the power to do it through your your Holy Spirit. So Lord, we thank you for that. We pray for anyone listening today for the same gifts to be given, and we encourage them to walk in the way that you would lead them. Lord, we just, we thank you for their faithfulness, and we pray for their requests, uh, and we pray for their safety this Thanksgiving Eve as they travel Or as they stay— yeah, well, or they stay home, uh, anything could happen. So we pray for their safety and we pray for their blessing, Lord. Um, we thank you for their faithfulness and we thank you for your faithfulness, Lord. We ask you to come alongside our prayer request for Bob Griffin, who's going— undergoing cancer treatments, and the other requests we made um, this morning in prayer. And we pray for the people listening as well and their prayer requests. Lord, as always, we pray for you to go before us, to open our eyes to the things you want us to see, and to lead us in the way we should go. We just want to do the best job we can do to represent you here on Earth, Lord, and we ask for your mercy and grace and assistance to do that Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.
