Thanksgiving!!!

Greetings one and all!

I hope you all are doing well and enjoying your holiday. As we celebrate Thanksgiving, here are a few thoughts to ponder. Even in Old Testament times, giving thanks and eating went hand in hand. “These are the regulations for the fellowship offering a person may present to the LORD: If he offers it as an expression of thankfulness, then along with this thank offering he is to offer cakes of bread made without yeast and mixed with oil, wafers made without yeast and spread with oil, and cakes of fine flour well-kneaded and mixed with oil. Along with his fellowship offering of thanksgiving he is to present an offering with cakes of bread made with yeast. He is to bring one of each kind as an offering, a contribution to the LORD; it belongs to the priest who sprinkles the blood of the fellowship offerings. The meat of his fellowship offering of thanksgiving must be eaten on the day it is offered; he must leave none of it till morning” (Leviticus 7:11-15).

So stuff your faces, and give thanks! “We must leave none of it till morning!” But beware; too much food could give you an upset stomach. Remember the story of Jonah. After stubbornly refusing to heed God’s call, he finally came around and said, “I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. Salvation comes from the LORD.” So God decided to release him from his ocean prison. “And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land” (Jonah 2:9-10).

But seriously, I leave you with these words from the Apostle Paul:
“I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men—the testimony given in its proper time. And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I am telling the truth, I am not lying—and a teacher of the true faith to the Gentiles” (1 Timothy 2:1-7).

“Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving” (Ephesians 5:4).

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!
Shawn

Why Not Judge?

“Judge not, lest ye be judged.” We’ve all heard this before. More than likely, we’ve used it before. It’s convenient for just about any sin. It’s an easy defense to anyone who questions you about cutting corners at work or cheating on your significant other. And the great thing about it is that, since it’s from the Bible, you can make your sin sound spiritual. Even non-Christians are getting in on it: quoting the verse with the passion of a TV evangelist. It’s the ultimate get-out-of-guilt-free card; and it works—at least for a while.

Why have so many people—both Christians and non-Christians—latched on to the “judge not” idea? First, we must look at our relativistic culture where our prevailing moral wisdom can be summed up in two rules. Rule 1: Do whatever you feel like doing as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else. Rule 2: say whatever you feel like saying as long as you don’t criticize anyone for following Rule 1. Second, we must look at scripture. Jesus did in fact say, “Judge not, that ye be not judged” (Mt. 7:1, KJV). We need to take his instruction seriously. We simply cannot go around condemning each other for every petty thing. There are matters of conscience that should remain so. There are times to refrain from judgment. But Jesus did not mean that we should simply sit back, smile, and let sin go. Third, we must look at ourselves. We sin. We cannot deny that in our hearts. “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8, NIV). The truth is there are moral matters in which we must discern between what is right and wrong in order to avoid unrighteousness and hold each other accountable.

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