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Getting a perspective for Thanksgiving

In the midst of all the madness out there, it's never a bad thing to get a bit challenged about the state of your own heart, especially with a day like Thanksgiving coming up. I'm not American, but I doubt there is a national holiday anywhere in the world for which non-Americans so easily find appreciation (not just for the food).

In the process of getting prepared to join the locals here in giving thanks to our Lord for all He has done for us, the message at Church on the weekend really spoke to me on two fronts.

Firstly, our good pastor read the entire script of the original Thanksgiving Day proclamation by the Continental Congress in 1777. You can read it all here, or view the original document here. The key excerpt for me was this:

"It is therefore recommended to the legislative or executive powers of these United States, to set apart Thursday, the 18th day of December next, for solemn thanksgiving and praise; that with one heart and one voice the good people may express the grateful feelings of their hearts, and consecrate themselves to the service of their divine benefactor; and that together with their sincere acknowledgments and offerings, they may join the penitent confession of their manifold sins, whereby they had forfeited every favor, and their humble and earnest supplication that it may please God, through the merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to forgive and blot them out of remembrance..."

Yip, that's right, back then the Congress of the United States wasn't afraid to declare that we should set aside a day to get right with God which means forgiveness of sins through the work of Jesus Christ. Nowadays, you'd be hard pressed to find this kind of solid preaching from the pulpit of many churches where the gospel has been reduced to social platitudes and prosperity cults.

On another front, I really had to get myself a new perspective on some of the crazy stuff going on out there. I've had a fair bit to say about the response to the passing of Prop 8 in California, especially as it regards the persecution of Christians as they have been singled out as the most obvious target for abuse by the Prop 8 opponents.

The challenging bit for me was to read again Acts 5:17-41 where Peter and the apostles counted it a privilege to have suffered for Jesus. They were flogged and told not to speak in the name of Jesus. Two thousand years later and the name of Jesus is still an offence to those who choose not to believe. When the members of Justice House of Prayer gave praise to Jesus on the streets of a gay district in San Francisco they had to be escorted out by the police (see my last blog posting).

I was fairly outraged by this, but after taking stock of Peter's response to persecution, I've decided to change my stance to one of admiration for the courage of those Christians and I wonder why I am not having a similar effect on the world around me?

So, with the words of the Continental Congress and Acts 5 firmly on my mind, I'll try to find myself a new perspective for Thanksgiving to include thanks, repentance and the hope that I too will be "worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name".

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