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Reality is Striking and Pregnant for Thanksgiving

I was struck by reality as I was driving home the other day.  I was making the required turns through our residential Omaha neighborhood and coming upon our street.  I looked at the houses, the cars, the people who were out and about and thought, “I live here?”

I thought about the fact that these same streets and houses were here while I was living halfway across the country, growing up with out Christ and maturing in the sinful opposition to God.  I was busy progressing through the ranks of the unregenerate (Eph. 2.1-3); spending my life in the obsessive compulsive fury of belittling the glory of God, mocking his mercy and presuming upon his love (Rom. 1.21-23).

And now I am driving home to my beautiful wife, lovely children and warm home?  This abundant love and kindness is truly undeserved.

But as my mind ran laps around these blessings  I was struck even further.  For God to give an enemy a home, a job, food, a wife, children, and friends is truly a blessing.  However, for God to give an enemy like me his glorious Son, His own Spirit, the blessed inheritance, the joys of a cleansed conscience, the privilege of communion with him, the living word of God, and indeed “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Eph. 1.3)!! This is other worldly, jaw dropping, pride smashing, affection stirring love.

The fact that I, to a degree, know myself (through experience and through the Word of God) causes me to abound with thanksgiving for the mere fact that, in light of an inflexibly righteous God, I am still existing!  But further to receive the blessings of this world and, even more, the glorious foretaste of heaven, what mercy! What grace!  What a glorious God!

So when I sit down at the table today with friends and family to enjoy food and fellowship I am reminded of something far more.  I am reminded of the blessed privilege of being welcomed at the banquet table of God to eat and feast with him through the merits of his beloved Son.  My Savior, God’s own dear Son, has poured out his life that I might have life.  He has given me his Spirit that I might fellowship with him, eating his flesh and drinking his blood (John 6), that my soul would indeed be satisfied, to the glory and pleasure of God.

Today there are a myriad of things that I have to be thankful for.  However, everything is to be seen through Christ-centered lenses and truly meant to abound for his own glory.  It is herein that I taste the pleasures of God.

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