Calendar Updates

 Rehearsals for the Christmas Performace will be on December 2 and 16 at noon.

Christmas Dinner will be on December 9 at 5 PM

There will be no Evening Service on the following dates:

November 23
December 24
December 31

Be Grateful Week

While we shouldn't just choose one week or one month to be grateful, sometimes we need a little reminder to express our gratitude to God, the Father, for all He has done for us. Sometimes we take for granted little things that, without Him, we wouldn't have. So I suggest that you pause, look around you, and notice the things that give you pleasure, that make your life a better thing, and ask yourself if you've put aside time to thank the Lord, our God, for providing them.

Gratitude

Gratitude

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands… Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name – Psalm 100:1,4

Thanksgiving above all involves communication with God. This is why the psalmist specifies that our thanksgiving is to be “unto the Lord”, within “his gates” and “his courts”, and expressed “unto him”. Thanksgiving only takes place when we are talking to God.

We can try to develop a contented heart, we can express to others how grateful we are – but it is not thanksgiving until we are talking to God and expressing our appreciation to him directly. Contentedness is not thanksgiving. Expressing a general sense of “being blessed” is not thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is you telling God, “Thank you!” Therefore, thanksgiving is only happening when prayer is happening.

However, it is also true that there is a public aspect to giving thanks. This is why gratitude is in the Bible constantly connected to the public proclamation of God’s glory. Here the psalmist exhorts “all lands” to make a joyful noise. Even while we are talking to God, there is also an element of thanksgiving that is public worship and proclamation as well.

So thanksgiving is first and foremost prayer. Yet it is not biblical thanksgiving if it remains only and always private. True thanksgiving overflows in public, prayerful proclamation of the goodness and glory of God. Thanksgiving is private, grateful prayer gone public!

Showing Genuine Love for Others

BIBLE MEDITATION:
 “Thou hast also given me the shield of Thy salvation: and Thy right hand hath holden me up, and Thy gentleness hath made me great.” Psalm 18:35

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:
Can a person donate to the poor and not have love? Can a person work in a soup kitchen for the homeless and not have love? Yes.
You say, “A person wouldn’t do that!” Oh yes, they would…if they had a guilty conscience. Sometimes it is neater to write a check or donate some used things than to give of our time.

Do you know what the world needs? Not more money, though I’m sure they’d be glad to take it. First Corinthians 13:3 says, “And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.” You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving of yourself to others.

ACTION POINT:
Ask God to show you the ways you can show His genuine love to others.