Praise the Lord for this week of Thanksgiving. I trust you all had a blessed and full weekend of living, worshipping, serving, and resting. The Lord blessed us with an abundant weekend. Our people distributed Thanksgiving baskets to several families in our area along with homemade desserts. We also prepared and served a meal Saturday noon at the First United Methodist Church, Endicott. Another team prepared and served a full Thanksgiving banquet in the Evening at the First United Methodist Church, Endicott. We gathered there for Saturday Evening worship and praise at 6:30 PM, where our dear brothers and fellow servants of Jesus, Aric Phinney and Yancey Moore, provided piano and organ music for worship. Joseph Benjamin offered a special music. Dr. Dino Pedrone, president of Davis College, brought the message. It was anointed and full of great blessing and grace from the Lord. Another team from our church joined other area churches in collecting Christmas She Boxes to be sent around the world to bless the children in the Name of Jesus our Lord. We gathered for worship at Wesley and at Union Center on Sunday morning, and I preached from Psalm 103.
Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s (Psalm 103:1-5).
In his runaway bestseller The One Minute Manager, Ken Blanchard recommends that leaders develop the practice of the “one-minute praising” in which they “catch them (their employees) doing something right.” We’re all used to bosses who catch us doing something wrong. How rare it is to be praised when we have done something well. Blanchard’s idea is to “catch them doing something right” and then give them a one-minute praising right on the spot. "Don’t wait", he says, "because waiting takes away the impact. Tell them right then, right there, how much you appreciate the good job they are doing."
This actually is more difficult that it appears. Most of us are better at criticism than at praise. We are much better that “one-minute blaming” than “one-minute praising.” Many of us would do well to put this into practice this week.
Psalm 103 is a prayer by David in which he
talks to his own soul and reminds himself to “bless the Lord” and “forget not
all his benefits.” He begins by calling us to wholehearted, intentional praise
of God. We can outline Psalm 103 this
way:
Personal (vv. 1-5) – David reviews the mercy of God to him.
National (vv. 6-18) – David reviews the mercy of God to Israel.
Universal (vv. 19-22) –David calls all created beings to praise the Lord.
We need a good dose of Psalm 103 to wash out that complaining spirit and replace it with a heart of gratitude to the Lord. We must think before we can thank. We must ponder before we can praise. We must remember before we can rejoice. Here are five blessed benefits of the Lord that we must not forget.
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Pardon - “Who forgives all your iniquity.”
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Healing - “Who heals all your diseases.”
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Deliverance - “Who redeems your life from the pit.”
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Coronation - “Who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy.” The older translations say that he crowns us with “lovingkindness.”
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Satisfaction - ”Who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” Eugene Peterson captures this nicely in The Message: “He wraps you in goodness—beauty eternal.”
This magnificent succession of benefits forms a perfect summary of Thanksgiving for anyone who wants to wake up his soul and praise the Lord.
In his sermon on Psalm 103, Clovis Chappell says that on the west coast of England there is the grave of a man who was much loved by all who knew him. When he died, these words were inscribed on his headstone. “Here lies a man who was satisfied with Jesus.” Chappell then adds this benediction: “If that can be said of us, we have sufficient to make all of time and eternity one great thanksgiving day.”
In Christ,
Brown
http://youtu.be/x3dXCL34aEA
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