Monday, November 7, 2016

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving as a national holiday comes and goes. And for many people that’s all there is to it. However, believers are exhorted in the Bible to be thankful not just on the holiday but throughout the believer’s life.
Many have been taught that the first Thanksgiving was held by the Pilgrims soon after the Mayflower anchored at Plymouth. Texans, however, claim that the first Thanksgiving in America was proclaimed in Palo Duro Canyon by Juan De Cadilla for his troops in 1541, seventy years before the Pilgrims arrived. So, there is some question as to when the national holiday began.
Scripture does not tell us anything as to when the first day of Thanksgiving was given. However, it tells us often and plainly that believers are to be thankful at all times. In fact, Thanksgiving was on again and off again until a widow named Sarah Hale who had five children and a millinery shop. Sarah authored a number of magazines. In 1846 she launched a crusade to establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday.
Here are a select three out of many Scripture passages that tell us to be thankful always. Psalm 92:1 says, “It is good to give thanks to the Lord. In Psalm 95:2 we read, “Let us come before His presences with thanksgiving.” And  in 2  Thessalonians 1:3 we read, “We ought always to give thanks to God.”