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Jessica's
Garden Verses
In And Around The World with Zita
Thanksgiving in Afganistan
Around The Garden with Margaret
Ephesians Is Like a Family Meeting
In The Kitchen with June
A failure to give THANKS is at the heart of much of
the sense
of gloom, despair, and despondency
that is so pervasive even among believers today. Furthermore, many of
the sins that are plaguing and devastating our society can be traced back
to the oft-undetected root of
unthankfulness.
The “attitude of gratitude” desperately needs
to be cultivated in our hearts, our homes, and our society. Its presence
brings a host of other blessings, while its absence has profound, lethal
repercussions.
A GRATEFUL person is humble, while ingratitude reveals
pride.
The GRATEFUL person feels a great sense of unworthiness:
“I have so much more than I deserve.” But an ungrateful person
says, “I deserve so much more than I have.”
Pride slays THANKSGIVING, but a humble mind is the
soil out of which THANKS naturally grows. (Henry Ward Beecher)
A GRATEFUL person is a loving person who seeks to gratify
and bless others, while an ungrateful person is bent on gratifying himself.
A GRATEFUL heart is a full heart, while an unthankful
heart is an empty one.
No matter how little he may actually have—compared
with others—a GRATEFUL person enjoys a sense of fullness. But no
matter how much a person may have…if he is not a THANKFUL person…he
will live with a gnawing sense of emptiness.
A GRATEFUL person is easily contented, while an ungrateful
person is subject to bitterness and discontent.
All of the above has been adapted from
The Attitude of Gratitude, by Nancy Leigh DeMoss.
Copyright 2000 by Life Action Ministries,
An ungrateful person holds tightly to his “rights”
and sets himself up for hurt and disappointment when God or others fail
to perform according to his expectations. But the individual who has yielded
all his rights to God sees all of life through THANKFUL eyes and has no
room in his heart for selfish, destructive emotions.
A GRATEFUL heart will be revealed and expressed by
THANKFUL words, while an ungrateful heart will manifest itself in murmuring
and complaining.
A GRATEFUL spirit enables people to view and respond
to the most painful circumstances in life with THANKSGIVING. As one person
observed, “Some people complain because God put thorns on roses,
while others praise Him for putting roses among thorns.”
Lice. Mice. Scorpions.
“You have
to resolve in your heart that God is good...”
Filth. Disease. Death.
“I trust
that if I die right now in this situation, then it is God's best thing
for me.”
Unjust Accusations. Beatings. Bombings.
“I meditated
on this verse: ‘All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful’.”
AROUND THE GARDEN with Margaret
NOVEMBER IN OUR GARDENS
This is being written the day after our young people
had the Sunday evening service and gave their testimonies. What a blessing!
The Good Seed was sown on good soil, took root, and is now bearing fruit
for the Lord of Harvest!
Last spring I promised to give our assessment of new
seeds we were sowing in our vegetable and flower garden. These are the
ones we felt were the best.
From Burpee:
W. Atlee Burpee & Co.
Online:
www.burpee.com. Phone: 1-800-888-1447.
From
Parks:
Park Seed
Online: www.parkseed.com. Phone: 1-800-275-9941.
Email: info@parkseed.com.
Margaret
Ephesians
is like a family meeting. All the members
of God’s family are called together and the Father explains the planning,
structure, and conduct of His family.
He begins by telling His children what took place before they were
born. That each member of His family was personally
selected to be His child “even as He chose us for Himself before
the foundation of the world” (1:4). This selection had nothing
to do with any future merit on our part but was the result of the “glory
of His grace” (1:6). Our sonship was made possible by Christ “in whom we have
redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the
riches of His grace which He lavished on us” (1:7-8). The preservation
of our place and position in God’s family is secured by the Holy
Spirit who “sealed” us “with a view to the redemption of
God’s own possession,” (1:13-14) and our place in God’s
family is for the third time said to be “to the praise of His glory”
(1:14).
Next the Father tells us about our
birth. When we “were dead in trespasses and sins (2:1)…God,
being rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us…made
us alive together with Christ…and raised us up with Him and seated
us with Him in the heavens in Christ Jesus” (2:4,5,6). This birth
process into God’s family is summarized in these words of God, “For
by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast”
(2:8-9).
The Father then looks at His Gentile
children and reminds us that it is an astounding privilege to have been
brought into His family with a standing and inheritance equal to Abraham’s
children who were the objects of the original covenants. “For through
Christ we both have access by one Spirit to the Father” so we are
now “fellow citizens” and “members of God’s household”
(
After such thrilling revelation, the Apostle Paul stands and leads
God’s family in a prayer. “I bow my knees before the Father…that
He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened
with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell
in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded
in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth
and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which
surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of
God.
Now to Him
who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think,
according to the power that works within us, to Him be
the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever
and ever. Amen” (
Following the prayer, the Father now
directs our attention to the conduct He expects of His children. This
conduct is easily seen by the use of the word “therefore.”
·
“Therefore,
walk in a manner worthy of the salvation with which you have been called”
(4:1).
·
“Therefore,
walk no longer as the unsaved walk” (4:7).
·
“Therefore,
become imitators of God and walk in love” (5:1-2).
·
“Therefore,
stop becoming partakers with the sons of disobedience but walk as children
of light” (5:7-8).“Therefore, be careful
how you walk, not as unwise but as wise” (
By Pastor Al Franklin
November is one of the few
months fresh cranberries are on the market. Rather than just cooking them
the traditional way for your Thanksgiving dinner, why not use them in
this tasty entrée? It’s something new to try on your family, and
my guess is that they will enjoy it.
Being enriched in everything
to all bountifulness, which causeth through
us THANKSGIVING to God (II Corinthians
