A Blessed Thanks Giving Day!
May this day be graced with His pronounced blessing and favor upon your heart and home. Thank you for your daily fellowship in God’s Word, allowing me to share something of the practicality and wonders of His truth as that has shaped my life. The privilege is mine that you would give audience to my thoughts and comments, and generously share them with others. I was just told that EveryDay Life in Bulgaria as translated by my friends, Lusi and Svetlana Arsov, has been requested by almost 900 individuals in the last 6 months since being made available by Friends Church in Sofia. I rejoice wherever and by whomever His Word is published and received into hungry hearts.
Thankfully, Allen Randolph
“God saw all that He had made and it was very good.” Genesis 1:31 NIV
“Life is best when you look past things distressing to all that is blessing.”
My thoughts today are about “thanksgiving as benediction.”
When you hear the word, “benediction,” do you think of that as the closing prayer or final word of dismissal? Actually, benediction just means “a good word or saying,” which usually comes at the conclusion of some event or activity of success. It feels good when you can look at what you have done or made, and say confidently without undue boasting, “I am proud of that.” You feel satisfied with your effort, and pleased with the result.
God gave His superlative benediction in the Garden of Eden when He surveyed all that His hands had made, “and it was very good.” That’s what God felt when He created the world and all that is in it, and finished with His masterpiece, Adam and Eve. God pronounced confidently, without fear of contradiction, “It is very good.”
Jesus gave the ultimate benediction at Calvary as He hung upon a cross to die for yours and my sin as He cried to the Father, “It is finished.” The single Greek word that phrase is translated from was really a benediction . . “that is my best effort and finest result.” When you were created by the hand of God, and again when you were redeemed through faith in Christ, Heaven heard the Eternal Creator say again, and just as true as at Creation, “It is very good.”
Think about it! God looks at you and speaks a wondrous benediction of grace, “very good!” It is never your right to disagree with God, to contradict for whatever reason what He chooses to prophesy over you in grace and love. “Long ago, even before He made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in His eyes.” Ephesians 1:4 NLT. Will you give a benediction about your life, what you have done with your time, talents, gifts and opportunities, and how you have lived it?
On this Thanksgiving Day, look past whatever struggles and challenges of the moment and see the full brilliance of His grace, and the abounding nature of His love, and the generous supply of His daily provision and give thanks. You will find you have more for which to be thankful than things about which to complain or regret. Life is best when you look past things distressing to all that is blessing. The sincere giving of thanks – “God is very good” – is your fitting response of benediction for God’s goodness to you. “In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” 1 Thessalonians 5:17 NKJV.
My prayer today for you is: may your life be a resounding amen to what God has spoken.