Dr. Bob Jones, Sr. used to say, “When gratitude dies on the altar of a man’s heart he is well-nigh gone.” There is no way to underestimate the power of thankfulness, in a heart or in a home! For believers, thanksgiving should not be a single day – it should be a way of life.
Later in November millions of people will set aside a day to reflect on their blessings and give thanks. What a powerful thing it would be if we gave an entire month to thanksgiving. At least the part that matters…I don’t think we could handle that much turkey or football for a month!
As many of you know, we have been offering free, monthly, downloadable resources this year. November’s resource is being offered today for a very specific reason. It is a tool to use with your family for the next four weeks.
When you enter your email address you will automatically receive the thanksgiving worksheet. Post it somewhere that everyone will see it frequently. (For our family that is the refrigerator! We go there a lot.)
Here are a few suggestions on how to use the resource effectively…
- Memorize the thanksgiving Scripture for each week. Challenge every member of your household to learn it! Quote it to one another and work to apply it every day.
- Create a thanksgiving list each week. As a family make a list of things for which each of you are grateful to God. Try not to repeat yourself from week to week.
- Set aside a thanksgiving time each week. During breakfast, at the dinner table, in the car, before bed…spend some time giving thanks with your family. Make praise a part of your prayers.
Several years ago my wife challenged each member of our family to share three things every night for which we were grateful. When we first began it seemed a little awkward. By the end of a week we were all thinking of so many things to give thanks for. Even more than that, the tone of our home was sweeter. Gratitude affected us all in many ways.
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations. (Psalm 100:4-5)
Let Thanksgiving begin on November 1 in your home!
Download the worksheet HERE.
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Gratitude should be sooooo important to the Christian — not as a ‘tool of false appreciation’, but as a means of expressing that which should truly exists in one’s heart! Scripture teaches that the Christian should allow “the goodness of God” to keep oneself in an attitude of repentance … to keep oneself humbly in tune with Christ! (Rom. 2:4) The Saint can either get away from his Savior and be brought back into fellowship through chastening, or the Saint can remain humbly grateful for how good God has been to him, and wisely choose to never leave the shelter of His wings (Ps. 91:1-4) –all through recognizing “the goodness of God”.
And…(while we are at it)…always remember to express gratefulness to your spouse and family, and to those around you! Expressed gratitude is the oil of marriage/family/etc. that helps to keep the gears working smoothly!
For Thanksgiving, when our children were younger, we routinely taped a cut-out tree on the refrigerator. Then, working around the kitchen table, we would take turns naming something for which we were thankful, and write that item of a cut-out paper leaf. Then the little ones would eagerly run to the refrigerator and tape the leaves onto the paper tree affixed to the refrigerator. This is one way in which we attempted to instill a thankful heart into our children.
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