Thanksgiving For Everything
An excerpt from a sermon for tomorrow
Our thanksgiving as Christians is much deeper than simply thanking God for all the good things. Christians give thanks for the bad too. Christians thank thank God for disease, for cancer, for the droughts, for the rain that comes to late, for the injuries.
It sounds masochistic. Perverse. The delusions of a fanatic. Nonsense. Think what you will.
I know that God is good.
I know that St. Paul says, “in everything give thanks.”
I know that God disciplines those He loves.
I know that God works all things for my salvation.
I know that God is good.
I know that suffering with Christ is a blessing.
I know that Christ suffered for me.
I know that God is good, even when it looks like hell to me.
I know that God is patient, long-suffering, even when I am not.
I know that at the times this is hard. When the job goes badly, when people turn against you, when the fever rages, when the diagnoses comes, when all seems dark--that kind of thanksgiving is far, far, from my lips and has fled my heart.
But God is good. What He does is good. What He allows is good.
If not, we should all go home and never come back.
If not, our faith is empty.
If not, there is no hope.
If not, even Christ cannot save you.
God is good and loves his whole creation.
In everything give thanks, knowing that God works all things for the good for those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.
See "How Can We Give Thanks" by Fr. Stephen Freeman
5 comments :
A Russian iconographer I know grew up atheist in the former USSR, served in the Red Army, etc. He was said something to the effect of: I would never pray for Bolshevism not to have overtaken Russia because then we would have to give back all the saints the Soviets made. This seems similar to the yearning for martyrdom we see in St. Ignatius of Antioch and other martyrs.
thanks, pastor
Which is precisely why I thank God for sticking me near such a lout as you. . .
Same as it ever was. . . >=o)
If you guys aren't doing anything for Thanksgiving we are doing a dinner here from 11:30-3 or so, and it looks like we are going to have tons. . . so y'all are welcome. . . as are any of the folks from Redeemer who don't have plans.
Keeping the Joke with Pr. Brown running...
And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful
Wife
And you may ask yourself-well...how did I get here?
Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the moneys gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.
So if that is your theme song, what is my rock theme song?
We should know this in case we ever do an internet radio show together.
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