Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Still Thankful


We made it! We do the best we can to keep up the levy and hold off Christmas until after Thanksgiving, but that barrier cracks and leaks until it finally bursts forth with glitter and lights before the turkey platter even gets washed. As a kid I had my suspicions that Thanksgiving was a pre-Christmas conspiracy to give parents plenty of time to lecture their children about being gracious and polite. Even to this day when I get ready to go to a Christmas party I hear my Mom and Dad’s voices in my head saying, “Even if you open something you don’t like you need to smile and say thank you; remember that they didn’t have to get you anything.” (This is a skill I continue to use year after year.) 

Honestly, I love the Thanksgiving holiday. We get the great food and family time; and people are generally in a jolly holiday spirit because the stress and expense of Christmas packages has not quite set in. Thanksgiving is sort of the holiday honeymoon. However, a quote from John MacArthur’s book Worship: The Ultimate Priority has continued to resonate with me. 

He says, 
“We cannot verbally thank and praise God while living lives of selfishness and carnality. That kind of effort at worship is a perversion. Real acts of worship must be the overflow of a perpetually worshipping life.”

Rather than being the middle child of holidays (poor Jan); Thanksgiving should be the anniversary celebration of a perpetually worshipping life. A life lived in gratitude to our Creator God who loved us and has saved us so that we can enjoy the pleasure of praising Him.

As we fold up our paper turkeys and unload the Christmas decoration Uhaul may it all be done in perpetually worship of the one whom we celebrate, not just this season, but all the days of our lives.