praise – Page 3

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, a time when we traditionally celebrate the blessings we enjoy in life. Many families have a tradition of sitting around their table and each guest or family member saying what they are thankful for.

I’m thankful for my salvation. For that to be possible I am thankful for the Holy Spirit drawing me to Jesus. For that to be possible I am thankful to Jesus for obeying the Father and dying on the cross. For that to be possible I am thankful for God who created all the world and who is so Holy that His son obeyed Him and took all the wrath that was destined for me on that cross. I am thankful He revealed Himself to us and that we have the privilege of prayer, the Word, the gifts, the fruits, and eternal life. I am thankful for the promises of prospering us in the regenerative process of growing in Christlikeness, for treasures and rewards in heaven, for the promise of rest and peace.

When we attend the marriage supper of the Lamb, sitting at the banquet table, we will be rejoicing. Now, the time after the rapture when we are presented as a bride, and the time of the Tribulation when we are having our purification and our rewards at the Bema Seat, and the time of the Millennial Kingdom when the marriage supper continues…and the final huge celebration at the New Heavens and the New earth after the old one is melted in a fervent heat…I don’t know if there will be actual food and actual table. I think there will be but I don’t know. So we go forward thinking of this as a celebratory rejoicing in heaven in our real, glorified bodies but unsure of if there will be food actually.

So when we are rejoicing in the Spotless Lamb after the rapture at the Marriage Supper, we will be thankful for His blood-bought purchase of us, for sure. We can personally thank our ministering angels. We can shake the hand of the saints from the Old Testament, such as Abraham, Esther, John the Baptist, David, Jeremiah… we can see God and live! What gratitude we will feel, for He created every good thing. Gratitude is a good thing and we will be experiencing it perfectly and fully!
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I’ve been stuck in one thought pattern for a while. I keep thinking about God creating the Universe. It took six days and He spoke it and it was so. More than just so, it was good. (Genesis 1:1-31). Now that’s enough to ponder right there, looking at the complexity of the world and the creativity of our God who spoke it all into existence within a few days!

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Then we disobeyed. Sin and shame and rebellion entered the world. It was all ruined, poisoned by our sin. God had to withdraw because His holiness cannot be near to sin (Habakkuk 1:13; Is 59:2)

Now the question I have been pondering, is really two part. The first part, I wonder why did God not erase us all and start over? He could have! He was grieved later that He had made us (Gen 6:6) and regretted it. It would have been so much easier for Him to do an etch-a-sketch and shake it all up and begin again. After all, it only would have taken a few days.

He didn’t wipe us out. I can’t get over that. Instead, in His love He chose a 6000 year travail that included more patience on His part that I can ever understand, more love, deaths of His apostles, and His own Son’s sacrifice in a grueling and horrific death!

The second thing I wonder is that even through all this, He still gives us as many gifts as He does. He gives us His son. He gives us salvation. He gives us the Holy Spirit. He gives us armor to resist satan, our enemy. He gives us the bible. And He gives us angels.

“For He will give His angels charge concerning you, To guard you in all your ways.” (Psalm 91:11)

“Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?” (Hebrews 1:14)

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven continually see the face of My Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 18:10)

“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.” (Hebrews 13:2)

There are entire web pages devoted to the ministry of angels, why God created them, and what they do for God in their ministrations to us. There are way more verses about angels than I posted here. Suffice to say that I am continually slain by the outpouring of love from our Father in His gifts to us. Angels! Imagine! To guide and protect us. Minister to us. Serve us. I think of their their faces turned toward God as in the verse in Matthew, like racehorses at the gate, itching to get going and minister to us in His name, waiting for Him to say “GO!”

When I go through a day when nothing uneventful occurs, I thank the angels and the Father Who sent them. I drive an old car, I live in an old house, I dwell where tornadoes come, there are many things that could happen to me each day…that don’t. Don’t take that nothing for granted. It might be interesting if He allows when we get there, to see a rewind of our life’s movie to view the efforts to which our angels went in keeping us safe from harm.

The car accident you didn’t have. The tears you didn’t have to shed. The slip on the ice that didn’t happen.

If you have an uneventful day think of the angels the Lord sends to us in service to our needs. Nothing happened? Thank an angel!

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Category: praise

Thanksgiving

"Angel, thanks for nothing"