Giving Thanks – Not Optional

November 22, 2010 By revheff in Events Tags: giving thanks, obedience, spiritual life, thanksgiving 2 Comments

Our confession of faith makes it clear. The giving of thanks comprises an essential component of true worship. Under the heading of Religious Worship, and the Lord’s Day paragraph 3 begins, God requires all men to pray to Him, and to give thanks, this being one part of natural worship.

Psalm 65:2 states Praise is due to you, O God, in Zion. Psalm 95:1-2 commands Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! Psalm 118 starts Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever.

Jesus modeled thanksgiving in his prayers. I thank you Father, Lord of heaven and earth; that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will (Matt. 11:25-26). Paul directed prayer as a first priority for the worshiping church and included thanksgiving as part of its character. First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people (1 Tim. 2:1). Indeed, the filling of the Spirit manifests itself in our lives by a relentless penchant for giving thanks (Eph. 5:18-20).

If I pause to consider, it amazes me just how much I have to thank God for as another Thanksgiving holiday comes around. So great a salvation. Relative sanctification (I have so far to go!). The Spirit’s voice. The precious word of God. Length of days. A loving, forbearing (if you only knew) wife. Kids, grand kids, and extended family. Shelter and provision in abundance. Ministry opportunities galore. Faithful friends. Keeping providence. Grace that abounds in the face of my sin. The covenant community at OGC. Making friends for eternity among the Digo and other people groups. Great co-workers. I could go on and on!

As this Thursday approaches and our country heeds the call of our forefathers to give thanks, how do you find your gratitude quotient? Perhaps you might make a list like the one above, recounting the many ways in which God has blessed you. Maybe you could include a sharing time around your table on Thursday as to why you are thankful. How about writing a friend and let him/her know why you are grateful. Be sure to include a note in the note about your gratitude for that friend! That will be a great encouragement. If you need help with this, you might want to read Scotty Smith’s post concerning prayer about being a gratitude-geyser.

It is not optional for the Christian, this discipline of thanksgiving. But if we give it some thought, we will find that it doesn’t take much to get the gratitude juices going. God has given us so much. If you don’t think so, just read Ephesians 1:3. If that doesn’t get you going, I don’t know what will.

Big Day Tomorrow at OGC

August 28, 2010 By revheff in Sunday Morning Tags: cancer, congregational life, prayer, thanksgiving, worship 3 Comments

The Lord’s Day tomorrow brings us a number of significant opportunities for gathering together as God’s people.

We begin at 8:30 AM with corporate prayer for those who can participate. As it is the last Sunday of the month, a group of us will gather for prayer on the property where we intend to build. Another group will pray in the SDA annex as usual, for those for whom the prospect of the heat and other environmental conditions on the property seem too uncomfortable.

At 9:30 AM we have our midyear congregational meeting in the SDA sanctuary. We will begin with a building program report, followed by financial and ministry updates, and finishing with an Ask-the-Elders-Anything session. Members and regular attendees alike are welcome to join us for that meeting.

At 10:45 AM comes our regular service of worship. I hope to conclude the sixth in a series of messages from John 10:1-21 in the Good Shepherd discourse.

At 6:00 PM we will gather for a special service of thanksgiving to celebrate the 5th year anniversary this month of my being cancer-free. Dr. William Grow, my medical oncologist, will share his testimony. Pastor Danny Jones of Metro Life Church, himself an over ten year tongue cancer survivor will preach. We will also have a time of open sharing by the members of the congregation remembering how God worked in 2005. Pastor John Christiansen of Orlando Community Church, in many ways a pastor to me throughout my treatment, will close the celebration by leading in a prayer of thanksgiving. A reception in the fellowship hall will follow the service. Remember to bring your finger food to share! Beverages will be provided.

Would you please pray with me that God moves in a powerful way in our midst tomorrow?

I am immeasurably grateful for length of days and the continuing privilege of serving in your midst as pastor-teacher!

"I Can't Find Anything Wrong with You"

August 20, 2010 By revheff in Personal Reflection Tags: cancer, death, healing, thanksgiving 7 Comments

Sweeter words a man has rarely heard.

They came from the lips of my ENT on Wednesday.

He spoke them after doing the upteenth exam on my mouth, tongue, and neck over the last five years, looking yet again for any evidences of cancer.

The verdict? I can’t find anything wrong with you. Good thing he wasn’t doing an exam on my sinful heart!

And so I graduate. I will miss the good doctor, but not the exams. He conveyed upon me the degree, Master of Life. Best one of the four I have ever gotten.

No need to see him or the radiation oncologist any more. Only my medical oncologist remains to sign off on the “cured” designation for my five year battle against head and neck cancer before the lot falls to my dentist alone to stand guard against another invasion of renegade cells.

Cool. Five years is a long time. I’ve dreamed of August 2010 many times. That God allowed me to make it and that we will celebrate that gift on the 29th at 6 PM at the SDA sanctuary AND that doc said he would come (please pray that he does) all have made for a very good month for me. I am grateful. Extremely grateful.

The poet, himself the beneficiary of his own miraculous deliverance from death, asked in Psalm 116:12, What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me?

The answer comes in vv. 13-14.

13 I will lift up the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the Lord,
14 I will pay my vows to the Lord
in the presence of all his people.

Oh, Lord God, make me faithful to do the same. Faithful to do the same.

What Shall We Do to Be Thankful?

November 25, 2009 By revheff in Books Tags: God's love, humility, pride, Puritans, sin, thanksgiving Leave a comment

Watson The day before Thanksgiving seems to make such a question advisable.

The Puritan Thomas Watson contended in his book, The Godly Man’s Picture, that, among other things, the goldy man is indeed a thankful man.

Toward the close of his chapter on that notion, he raises the practical question as to what shall godly men, and women for that matter, do to be thankful. His answers are two:

Answer 1: If you wish to be thankful, get a heart deeply humbled with the sense of your own vileness. A broken heart is the best pipe to sound forth God’s praise. He who studies his sins wonders that he has anything and that God should shine on such a dunghill: “I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, but I was shown mercy” (1 Tim. 1:13). How thankful Paul was! How he trumpeted forth free grace! A proud man will never be thankful. He looks on all his mercies as either of his own procuring or deserving. If he has an estate, this he has got by his wits and industry, not considering that scripture, “Always remember that it is the Lord your God who gives you power to become rich” (Deut. 8:18). Pride stops the current of gratitude. O Christian, think of your unworthiness; see yourself as the least of saints, and the chief of sinners—and then you will be thankful.

Answer 2: Strive for sound evidences of God’s love to you. Read God’s love in the impress of holiness upon your hearts. God’s love poured in will make the vessels of mercy run over with thankfulness: “Unto him that loved us, be glory and dominion forever!” (Rev. 1:5,6). The deepest springs yield the sweetest water. Hearts deeply aware of God’s love yield the sweetest praises.

What will work in us a spirit of gospel thanksgiving this holiday and beyond? Lord, grant us a sober perspective on our sinful condition AND a deep awareness of your stunning love.

Amazing love, how can it be, that thou my God shouldst die for me!

Nothing Matters More in the Battle Against Sin that Enslaves

November 24, 2009 By revheff in Exposition Tags: addiction, grace, heresy, knowledge of God, peace, sanctification, sin, thanksgiving Leave a comment

Among the things I give thanks to God for this Thanksgiving week is the grace He has given in delivering me over the years from enslaving sin.

How does that happen? We find a significant key in Peter’s second epistle.

Second Peter addresses a threat to the church of Jesus Christ in Peter’s day in the form of heresy, false teaching. Chapter 2:1 says – there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them. Their error was libertinism. They promoted license. They preached a perverse understanding of freedom and grace that entice by sensual passions of the flesh (2:18). Anything goes was the name of the game for this bunch. Grace covers.

Peter aims in this book to take such foolishness to task and arm the church with weapons of warfare to counteract the attack. He begins this letter with the indicative before ever stressing any imperatives. He talks of what is before what should be. He lays out a grand description of what God has done in saving His people. He bases his prescriptions for godly behavior on an eloquent description of what God has done.

In so doing he tips his hand at what makes for the key idea in the entire book. We see it in 1:2 – Grace and peace be multiplied to you. That’s not an unusual opening to any epistle. We find it often. The writer expresses a profound wish or hope that the letter to unfold in their hearing will prove to channel rivers of grace and oceans of peace to their lives – that such blessing be multiplied, be ever increasing in their lives. Where? Look at the rest of the verse – in (or through) the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

Who doesn’t want the favor of God in his life? Who doesn’t want the peace of God in her life? Who doesn’t covet ever increasing doses of grace and peace? Such can be found in only one source – the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. Don’t miss the connection in v. 2. You have no true knowledge of God if you do not claim Jesus as Lord. Jesus Christ is God. He is divine. In him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily (Col. 2:9). John 17:3 – And this is eternal life, that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. There is no true knowledge of the Father apart from an intimate knowledge of the Son.

Grace, peace, life, godliness, all the things that truly matter, the ultimate treasures, come from the knowledge of God in Christ. So we don’t miss it he says it again in v. 3 – His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him (emphasis added). The words know and knowledge appear some sixteen times throughout the three chapters of this little book. Peter is trying to tell us something! It matters what you know. Perhaps it would be better to say it matters Whom you know.

There is nothing that matters more in our battle against sin than a passionately personal, thorough going, ever increasing knowledge of God and His Son the Lord Jesus.

Do you want to win the battle over sin and its grip in your life? Give yourself to the vigorous pursuit of the growth of your knowledge of Him.

How Shall We Give Thanks This Sunday?

November 17, 2009 By revheff in Sunday Morning Tags: Paul's epistles, thanksgiving, worship Leave a comment

This coming Sunday brings us to our annual Thanksgiving service. I will not preach. Rather we will give the sermon time to congregational sharing. We will give thanks for God’s goodness and kindness to us in manifold ways.

The Psalmist expressed his determination to do that very thing in the temple in places like Psalm 111:1. Praise the LORD! I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart, in the company of the upright, in the congregation.

The question remains. Give thanks for what? Some things come quickly to mind. Health, provision, relationships, family, etc. These are all gifts of God and worthy of His praise.

But when we examine the disciplines of thanksgiving modeled by the apostle Paul we find other reasons for thanks on his agenda.

Consider Romans 1:8. I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.

Or how about 1 Cor. 1:4-7? I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given in Christ Jesus . . . so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift.

Then there is 2 Cor. 1:3-4. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

Hmmm. No thanksgiving at the beginning of Galatians. He was too hopping mad over their defection from the gospel into legalism.

Oh, good, back on track in Eph. 1:3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (see vv. 4-14).

He gives yet more thanks in Phil. 1:3-5. I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.

Pouring it on in Col. 1:3-5. We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.

Overflowing in 1 Thess. 1:2-3. We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Seeing a pattern developing with 2 Thess. 1:3-4. We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring.

For a specific individual, Timothy, in 1 Tim. 1:3-5. I thank God whom I serve, as did my ancestors, with a clear conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. As I remember your tears, I long to see you, that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well.

Finally, another particular person in view, Philemon, in Philemon 4. I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and of the faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and all the saints.

My, the sheer volume of thanks coming from Paul’s lips in the New Testament takes the breath away! Surely he would echo the resolve of the Psalmist to let his praise and thanksgiving be heard amidst the congregation of the upright.

Along with the normal things we thank God for, let’s take our cue from the apostle and reflect more broadly in scope for causes of thanksgiving – Christian faith around the globe, spiritual gifts working in the church, comfort in affliction from Christ and toward others, unspeakable mercies in every spiritual blessing from above, partners in the gospel, faith in Christ, love among the saints, hope of eternal life, steadfastness in suffering, tears of joyful remembering, and faith transmitted by godly parents.

In light of this survey, prayerfully consider what God might have you share with a whole heart in the company of the upright this Sunday morning. And may our praise redound to His glory and add to the overflow of our joy!