Praise the Lord for this
Thanksgiving Eve of 2013. We are ready to celebrate Thanksgiving. Janice and
Jeremy are staying in Boston with the children to celebrate a New England
Thanksgiving. Sunita and Andy are staying in Washington, and plan to celebrate
Thanksgiving with friends in Baltimore. Tom and Jessica are planning to come up
from Philadelphia after work tonight, and Laureen is coming in as well. All of
our Indian family, who live nearby, will be joining us for the day. We are
planning for an "Indian" Thanksgiving. The Lord is good, and His faithfulness
endures forever.
We
will not meet for our Wednesday evening gathering today. We will keep on
praising the Lord God our Father from whom all good and perfect gifts come to
us. Praise the Lord for the wonderful gift of Salvation in Jesus Christ. He is
the reason for our rejoicing. He is the reason for our celebrations. He is the
reason for our thanksgiving. Praise the Lord for the gifts of faith, hope, and
love -- the "holy trinity" from I Corinthians. Alice and I praise the Lord for
all of you, for our life together in Jesus. We praise Him for His faithfulness
to us as we are ministering in our 24th year here in Endicott. We praise the
Lord for the new and spacious 2-story addition, with which the Lord has blessed
us as a church. A new elevator is in the process of being installed and should
be in full operation by December 7, the day of our Thanksgiving/Christmas
banquet.
We praise the Lord for
the times of blessings, and for His presence with us during times of trials. He
gives us His peace that passes all understanding. We can all sing because of
Christ, "It is well with my soul." Praise the Lord for the Church around the
corner and around the world. Praise the Lord for the Advent season that is upon
us. People are preparing and planning to celebrate Advent and Christmas around
the world. Let us thankfully and joyfully prepare our hearts, our hearths, and
our homes to celebrate the coming of Jesus.
In the first half of the
17th century, in the worst of times, Germany was in the midst of wars and famine
and pestilence. In the city of Eilenburg lived a pastor by the name of Martin
Rinkart. During one
especially oppressive period, Rinkart conducted up to 50 funerals a day as a
plague swept through the town and as the Thirty Years' War wreaked its own
terror upon the people. Among those whom Rinkart buried were members of his own
family. Yet, it was during
those years of darkness and despair, when death and destruction greeted each new
day, that Pastor Rinkart wrote 66 sacred songs and hymns. Among them was the
song "Now Thank We All Our God." As sorrow beset him, Rinkart wrote this hymn
of thanks and praise.
"Now thank we all our
God, With hearts and hands and voices, Who wondrous things hath done, In
whom His world rejoices; Who, from our mothers' arms Hath blessed us on
our way, With countless gifts of love, And still is ours
today."
Rinkart demonstrated the
valuable lesson that Thankfulness does not have to wait for prosperity and
peace. It is always a good time to praise God for the "wondrous things" He has
done.
May Jesus bless each of
our gatherings and celebrations. May He be praised! All praise, honor, glory,
and thanksgiving belong to Him.
In
Christ,
Brown
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