A Thanksgiving For His Steadfast Love - Psalm 107:43

Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things; let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord. - Psalm 107:43

    When seeking a loan for a house or property, the bank’s agent will list all the collateral value that we have. He will not, however, draw up a list of things we don’t have. Our strengths coming into the loan officer will depend upon the things we have rather than on the things we don’t have. When considering our lives, we should take the same tact. Rather than count all the things we lack or desire we need to count those things of value that we do have. The things we have been blessed with!
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” - James 1:17.
    It is only natural for people to downplay, forget, or ignore all the blessings they have received from God. We tend to take it all for granted. Every blessing, even the people we hold dear, are often simply assumed to be in our lives by virtue of decisions we have made or simple blind luck. Seldom do we wake daily and thank God for His providence in our lives. We live our lives planning and expecting things to just go our way. It’s part of the stain upon our humanity. A more sober view of the blessings we have in this life is required of us all, for so soon, for so quickly the blessings can be gone. “. . . for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world.” - 1 Timothy 6:7.
    Today, we celebrate the holiday of Thanksgiving when we quickly assess ‘what we have’ and just as quickly seem to forget it all tomorrow. We rationalize that we simply cannot walk around every day, giving thanks for the good things in our lives. “We would never get anything done if that was the case,” we say, boldly rationalizing our ingratitude. The truth is that we seldom inventory the blessings in our lives. We are too often obsessed with the things we don’t have and are constantly coveting and striving to achieve more when we should all be numbering the ways God has blessed our lives. We should be “. . .  giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . .” - Ephesians 5:20.
    We, each and every one of us, have been blessed beyond our greatest imagination. The most mundane inventory of our lives reveals just a peek at the blessings God has bestowed upon us. We would sooner develop writer’s cramp before we completed the task. No computer could ever hold all the blessings we have received from above. There is no number! And yet most of us stumble through this life in the fog of want and the mists of desire.
    Today, as we celebrate Thanksgiving let us gather with our loved ones and offer our prayers of thankfulness to the God who has showered us with all manner of blessing. He has done so out of His ceaseless love for us. It is His love for us that has provided for our daily needs. It is His love for us that has granted us our children, whom we take such joy in. It is His boundless love for us that gives us our very breath. It is His steadfast love that gives us our reason for being.
“Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!” - Psalm 107:1
    Today, let us all give thanks to God for every family member and friend. Happy Thanksgiving!

The Only Election That Matters - Psalm 118:8-9

It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes. - Psalm 118:8-9

    The Presidential election is over. By the hand of God, the current President will get another term in office or we will have a new President on January 20th, 2021, no matter what the contesting party believes. One side won; the other lost. With partisan politics, being what they are in the 21st Century, both the inflammatory rhetoric and acts of violence will continue now no matter who is in power. And it all stems from this idea that one man can change the course of the culture and the world, that one man can be a savior - in a sense. Knowing from our national experience that this is a belief we should have jettisoned years ago, we still insist on believing this mythology. “Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish.” - Psalm 146:3-4.
     I admit that I firmly supported the agenda of the current President. I wasn’t voting for a moral icon or figure of faith; I was voting for a man to do the difficult job of representing a nation, of becoming President of the United States. I believed that despite his many personal flaws, he was the best possible man for the job and I would still support him today were the outcome to favor him. So what is my recourse now if he doesn’t prevail? Well, I could lay down in the street and pitch a screaming and crying fit like others have in past elections or I could flatly refuse to admit that the new President is also now my President. I could do that but to what end? As a Confessional Presbyterian, I know that nothing transpires anywhere in the universe without God’s ordination. God is present at every Presidential Inauguration. Whoever is President is now in office because it is God’s decree that he should be, in spite of mine or anyone else’s wishes. “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.” - Proverbs 19:21.
    So, instead of having a conniption fit over the election’s results, I will do what I have learned to do over the years despite the disappointments I have experienced - I will pray.
“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” - 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18.
     I must rejoice in every day, both good and bad. I must pray without ceasing because it is God’s will that I pray. I must give thanks in all circumstances because God has seen fit to bless me with favor at times or subject me to tribulation at times because this is His will! I must remember the words of Job, a man whom God considered blameless and upright. “Then his wife said to him, ‘Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.’ But he said to her, ‘You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?’”- Job 2:9-10.
    Prayer is one of the constants that God wants to see in our lives. When things go wrong, He condescends to us and listens to our prayers. Instead of us counting on our elected officials to straighten the course of a crooked and fallen world, we must set a place for the Lord at our table. His very proximity in our lives fills the void left by our spurious faith in man. “Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually!” - 1 Chronicles 16:11. No man can do what the Lord does. Once we understand that, all we need to do is our part - vote, and the will of God will be done! Afterward, we must accept His decisions. Then, there is only one thing left for us to do. “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.” - Romans 12:12. This is the will of God for man.
    In the end, I will acknowledge whoever is inaugurated President on January 20th, 2021. After all, there is only one election that matters and that is our election as God’s children. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love . . .” - Ephesians 1:3-4.

The Blessing Of Answered Prayer - Matthew 15:2

But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” - Matthew 15:25

    In the fifteenth chapter of Matthew we are introduced to the “Canaanite woman.” In Mark, chapter seven, she is referred to as the “Syrophoenician woman.” She approached Jesus, pleading with Him to cure her daughter who was oppressed by a demon. Christ initially refused to take up the woman’s case which led to this exchange. “And he answered, ‘It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.’ She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table.’” - Matthew 15:26-27. What followed is perhaps one of Christ’s greatest and most notable responses to the exhibition of true faith -   “Then Jesus answered her, ‘O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.” - Matthew 15:28.
    This particular instance is a true example of how God responds to unquestionable faith as shown by our devout and impassioned prayers. This woman’s supplication to Jesus illustrates what the Apostle James means when he says - “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” - James 5:16(b).
    The woman, despite the fact that she was a Gentile, placed her undying faith in Jesus. She knelt before Him and presented her supplication to Him. What is more important is the sheer audacity of her faith. Even after Jesus (and His apostles) tried to dissuade her from continuing her request, she boldly pressed forth her insistence that Christ deliver her daughter from demonic oppression. Jesus saw it as undefiled faith even though she was neither a Jew nor a disciple.
    Prayer, by its very nature, demands that we engage in it wholeheartedly and without reservation. We cannot approach God with our lifeless and lethargic supplications. We must come to Him with an attitude of repentance and acceptance of Jesus as LORD and Savior, not merely savior alone. Scripture tells us - “We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him.” - John 9:31. Here the Bible is speaking of ‘unrepentant sinners,’ those who pray in one moment then rub a magic lamp in the next.
    We are given precise instructions if we are to have our prayers heard. “. . . if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” - 2 Chronicles 7:14. There is no confusion or ambiguity here: God will respond to those who seek Him in faith.
    Holy Scripture is straightforward as to the prerequisites for answered prayer and we are to be patient, waiting for God in His time to answer our requests. Certainly, we may be in a hurry. Our situations may demand a prompt response but God moves in His own time and no man can hurry the hand of the Lord. “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” - Psalm 27:14.
    We must remember that there are clearly defined requirements for prayer to be considered by God. Praying to ‘the universe’ or some Wiccan abomination will not result in answered prayers. Praying in some cultic ritual will not bring a satisfactory answer. We must pray to the one Triune God of the Bible if we are to hold onto hope for answers to our prayers and follow the course of acceptable prayer. “When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.” - Psalm 34:17.
    Finally, the Apostle Paul reminds us to be persistent, as persistent as the Canaanite woman who would not be turned away from her one quest, from her one plea, from her one prayer. ‘Lord, help me!’ Let us always “ . . .  pray without ceasing . . .” - 1 Thessalonians 5:17.

In God’s Own Time - Psalm 104:5

He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved. - Psalm 104:5

    Disallowing for man’s fertile imagination and cinematic license, the very notion that our planet is vulnerable to destruction from a large asteroid or comet is the stuff of myths, pure science ‘fiction.’ One simply has to question, if the earth is truly as old as science declares it is, why do we not look like the moon? Keep in mind that the distance between the earth and the moon is a mere 238,900 miles, a ‘stone’s throw’ in cosmic terms. How could all of those impacts have left their marks on the moon, turning it into a barren dust ball in space and, somehow miraculously missed the earth? The answer, as most scientists explain, is a cluster of suppositions and theories, none of which can be confirmed.
    According to the latest numbers, the earth is approximately 4.543 billion years old. And so is the moon. “And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars.” - Genesis 1:16.
    Science insists, to the point of ridiculing Christian ‘young-earth creationism,’ that both the earth and the moon are of equal age. Yet, if the scientists are correct, the moon is pockmarked and scarred far beyond what it must have looked like in it’s cosmic infancy. In the meantime, for over four-billion years (according to man’s finite wisdom) the earth has gradually become vibrant and full of life, with barely a nick in its foundation. According to science, life not only manifested itself on earth but evolved into other life forms all the while the moon was being battered and cratered by celestial bodies which miraculously always seemed to ‘miss the earth,’ All this, despite its proximity to the moon. “But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you; or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.” - Job 12:7-10.
    So what has kept the earth alive in its orbit around the sun for over four billion years? The simplest and most accurate answer is - the providence of God. To deny it is not only heretical but blasphemous as well. What on earth do we have that God has not provided for us? Even science tells us that the earth enjoys a ‘unique’ set of cosmic circumstances that allowed life to manifest itself after a period of time had elapsed. In fact, our most brilliant scientists have yet to discover even one other planet that has the same (or similar) life producing and life-sustaining conditions. To what do we owe this unique set of circumstances? “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” - Romans 11:36.
    A careful reading of Holy Scripture reveals to us that in the end days we will, in fact, experience cosmic destruction at a level unheard of in the annals of mankind’s science. Rest assured that when the cataclysm of the heavens takes place, God is surely coming. “And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” - Luke 21:25-27. Such cosmic destruction will not mean the earth is destined to be struck and moved off its foundations. It will mean the coming of the Lord.
    Many will scoff and laugh at the truths revealed to us in Holy Scripture but God’s holy word is truth, regardless of man’s insolent and arrogant temerity in his own science. The faithful need not fear man’s faulty equations or thinking. Man is man but God is God. “And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” - Colossians 1:17. Regardless of the science, the earth was created and maintained by God’s hand and will remain firm on its foundation until God, not mankind, decides the end time has come.