Image via Wikipedia

November 19, 1863–Gettysburg Address

That from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God, and that government of the people by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth.

63 days left until inauguration day.

For the President-Elect to be patient in every endeavor.

The end of a matter is better than its begining, and patience is better than pride.  Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools.–Ecclesiastes 7:8-9

Holy God, all wisdomand knowledge begin with You.  you alone hold eternity and truth in Your hands.  Discernment comes from You and You see and know all motives and purposes.  You are awesome and wise, and we begin by recognizing and praising Your authority and knowledge.

Lord, it is sometimes our nature to respond with fury rather than restraint in times of stress or trouble.  but God, we also know that through You we can do all things, even those things that go directly against our nature.  We ask you to do this work now in our Porsident Elect, and make him a man of caution, reason and prespective.  Enabe him, O God, to be able to see the big picture, and to have a patient spirt that eschews pride and emotionalism.  Give him, Lord, Your patience, great and long suffering, in the name of Your Son Jesus Christ, Amen

Image via Wikipedia

“I Pledge Allegiance”

Did you know that two very powerful beings are constantly pleading for your allegiance and trust.  The truth is–we can only pledge to ONE!  I bet you can guess who those beings are:  Our Great God, the Creator and Holy One and Satan.  These two beings are in a constant battle.

The Enemy:

• Satan-(mentioned 55 times in the bible)
• The devil-(35 times)
• great Dragon-(Revelation 12:9)
• god of this age-(II Corinthians 4:4)
• ruler of this world-(John 16:11)
• Lucifer-Isaiah 14:12-14
• prince of the power of the air-(Ephesians2:2)
• Adversary-devil-(I Peter 5:8)

• He was and still is the most powerful created being. (Ezekiel 28:11-19; Isaiah 6)
• He has one-third of the angels as his helpers (demons). (Revelation 12:4)
• he is not omniscient(all knowing). BUT-he does know the scriptures and believes in God.
• He is not omnipresent

Here is the Enemy’s Strategy

• He is continually trying to seduce believers to think incorrectly about themselves. (This is called PRIDE) Genesis 3:1-7; Deuteronomy 17
• He is continually trying to seduce believers to misrepresent the facts. (This is called LYING) John 8:44
• He is continually trying to seduce believers to be independent from God’s authority. (This is called ANARCHY) Isaiah 14:12-14

The Enemy’s Temptations

• COWARDICE- Fear in spiritual things.  II Timothy 1:7; I Peter 5:8
• BUSYBODY- Overly curious and meddling in anothers’ affairs. I Timothy 5:13-15
• DISAPPOINTMENT/DISCOURAGEMENT- A lack of trust in God’s resources during hardship and distress. II Corinthians 12:7-9
• LAZINESS- Spiritually inactive, satisfied to let the other perosn do God’s work.  I Timothy 5:11-15
• LYING- Misrepresenting the truth. Acts 5:4-6
• PRIDE- Self exaltation, self reliance or acting independently of God.  Isaiah 14:12-15
• STEALING- Taking of someone else’s belongings.  Ephesians 4:27-28
• GOSSIP- Accuse falsely and malicious intent.  II Corinthians 12:20
• UNFORGIVING ATTITUDE- Refusal to forgive another when they have confessed.  II Corinthians 2:10-11

How to have Victory over Satan

• Be in the Word!  The Battle is the Lords.  Matthew 4.
• Practice Humility.  You are the light of the world.  James 4:6-7
• Be serious and spiritually awake.  I Peter 5:8
• Armor UP!!  Ephesians 6:10-18

May you walk with the Lord and may He watch over you always!

Image via Wikipedia

• September 24, 1789: Elias Boudinot from New Jersey proposed that the House and Senate request that George Washington set a day of thanksgiving for “the many signal favors of Almighty God.”  he also said he “could not think of letting the session pass over without offering an opportunity to all the citizens of the United States of joining, with one voice, in returning to Almighty God their sincere thanks for the many blessings he had poured down upon them.”
• There were other claims to the First Thanksgiving celebrated in the New World.  A small French Huguenot settlement, near where present day Jacksonville, Floridais, is recorded as singing a psalm of Thanksgiving to God, beeching Him that it would please Him to continue his accustomed goodness.  This was on June 30, 1564 and their leader was Rene de LaudonniPre.
• In 1610, during the “starving time”, the colonists at Jamestown called for a time of Thanksgiving.  There original number was 409 and they were reduced to 60 during the hard winter.  The colonists prayed for help and a ship from England arrived with food and supplies.
• June 29, 1676 was shown to have been the first official Thanksgiving Day.  It was celebrated in Charles-town, Massachusetts.
• There was no “nation” at this time but the celebrations was religious and specifically Christian in origin. A community of God-fearing Puritans created Thanksgiving and set it aside to thank the Lord for His many blessings.  The day they chose, coming after the harvest at a time of year when farm work was light.  This fit into the rhythm of their rural life.
• Abraham Lincoln, on October 3, 1863 declared the last Thursday of November to be a nationwide celebration of thanksgiving:  “We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown.  But we have forgotten God.  We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.  Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, to proud to pray to the God that made us. O human counsel hath devised, not hath any mortal hand worked out these great things.  They are the gracious gifts of the most high God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy…I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday in November next as a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent father who dwelleth in heaven.”
• Starting with Lincoln, Presidents set the last Thursday in November aside for a national day of Thanksgiving.  Later it was changed to the third Thursday in November “to give more shopping time between Thanksgiving and Christmas” by Franklin D. Roosevelt.

By: John Alfred Hultman (1861-1942)

Thanks, O God, for boundless mercy, From Thy gracious throne above; Thanks for every need provided, From the fullness of thy love!  Thanks for daily toil and labor, and for the rest when shadows fall; Thanks for love of friend and neighbor, And thy goodness unto all!

Thanks for thorns as well as roses, Thanks for weakness and for health; Thanks for clouds as well as sunshine, Thanks for poverty and wealth!  Thanks for pain as well as pleasure–All Thou sendest day by day; And Thy Word, our dearest treasure, Shedding light upon our way.

Thanks, O God, for home and fireside, Where we share our daily bread; Thanks for hours of sweet communion, When by Thee our souls are fed! Thanks for grace in time of sorrow, And for joy and peace in Thee; Thanks for hope today, tomorrow, And for all eternity!

Image by withrow via Flickr

Thank:  bless, declare blessed, profess, confess, praise (2 Sam. 14:22; Matt. 11;25)

Thank Offering:  Offering to show thanks to God for a gift or for His help (2 Chron. 29:31; 33:16)

Thanksgiving:  Gratitude, especially toward God, for a gift or action (Jonah 2:9; 2 Cor. 4:15)  Thanksgiving is an important element of Christian worship expressed in everyday life as well as during worship services.  may Psalms express thanksgiving.

How to you show thanksgiving in word?  action?  attitude?

Image via Wikipedia

www.juiceplus.com/+kg97071   

Juice Plus+ is much more than a supplement.  Unlike traditional vitamin supplements, Juice Plus+ provides a much wider variety of the naturally occurring vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, antioxidants, enzymes, and other nutrients-even fiber-found in fresh, raw fruits and vegetables.

FACT:

The US government has spent billions trying to find a cure for heart disease, cancer, and other diseases.

THEIR CONCLUSION:

Disease is easier to prevent than it is to cure!!

THEIR RECOMMENDATION:

Eat 5-9 servings of fresh, raw fruits and vegetables every day.

THE PROBLEM:

ALMOST NO ONE DOES!!

THE SOLUTION !!

JUICE PLUS+

The Nutritional Essence of 17 Fruits, Vegetables and Grains

Simple, convient and Affordable

ORCHARD BLEND:  Apples, Oranges, Pianeapple, Chanberries, Peaches, Acerola Cherries, Papaya

GARDEN BLEND:: Carrots, spinach, Parsley, Beets, Kale, Broccoli, Cabbage, Tomato, Barley, Oats

CONCLUSION:  JUICE PLUS+ REALLY WORKS !!

Jp+ is packed with whole food nutrition

Jp+ raises levels of antioxidants in the blood

JP+ lowers levels of lipid peroxides and homocysteine in the blood

JP+ helps enhance immune function, reduce DNA damage and impreve circulation

A large and growing body of independent scientific rearch

*on children, teans adults, senior citizens and even pregnant women

*on a variety of conditions, in a variety of circumstances, all leading universities around the world:

University of Arizona–Georgetown University–MD Anderson–Vanderbilt University–Brigham Young University–King’s College, London–U of M Medical Center–University of Vienna–UCLA–Univsity of Maryland–University of Sydney–Wake Forest University

Praise and Thanksgiving

O My God,  Thou fairest, greatest, first of all objects, my heart admires, adores, loves thee, for my little vessel is as full as it can be, and I wou pour out all that fullness before thee in ceaseless flow.

When I think upon and converse with thee–ten thousand delightful thoughts spring up, ten thousand sources of pleasure are unsealed, ten thousand refreshing joys spread over my heart, crowding into every moment of happiness.

I bless thee for the soul thou hast created, for adorning it, sanctifying it, though it is fixed in barren soil; for the body thou hast given me, for preserving its strength and vigour, for providing sneses to enjoy delights, for the ease and freedom of my limbs, for hands, eyes, ears, that do thy bidding; for thy royal bounty providing my daily support, for a full table and overflowing cup, for appetite, tast, sweetness, for social joys of relative and friends, for ability to serve others, for a heart that feels sorrows and necessities, for am id to care for my fellow-men, for opportunities of spreading happiness around, for loved ones in the joys of heaven, for my own expectation of seeing thee clearly. 

I love thee above the powers of lanuage to express, for what thou art to thy creatures.

Increase my love, O my God, through time and eternity.

Image by blipars via Flickr

By: George J. Elvey (1816-1893)

 Come, ye thankful people, come–Raise the song of harvest-home: All is safely gathered in Ere the winter storms begin. God, our maker, doth provide, For our wants to be supplied: come to God’s own temple, come-Raise the song of harvest-home.

All the world is God’s own field; Fruit unto His praise to yield: Wheat and tares together sown, Unto joy or sorrow grown. f]First the blade and then the ear, Then the full corn shall appear: Lord of harvest, grant that we Wholesome grain and pure may be.

For the Lord our God own field, And shall take His harvest home: from his field shall in that day, All offenses purge away–Give His angels charge at last, In the fire the tares to cast, But the fruitful ears to store, In His garner evermore.

Image by Skiwalker79via Flickr

Everything

But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.  Philippians 4:19

I can do all things through Christ which strengthened me.  Philippians 4:13

And in that day ye shall ask me nothing.  Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.  Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.  John 16:23,24

And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.  Matthew 21:22

Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.  Romans 8:37

Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray,. believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.  Mark 11:24

Therefore let no man glory in men.  For all things are yours;  Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours;  And ye are Christ’s and Christ is God’s.  I Corinthians 3:21-23

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.  Ephesians 1:3

If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.  John 15:7

And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.  I John 3:22

Image by CaptPiper via Flickr

In the beauty of a snowflake

falling softly on the land

is the mystery

and the miracle

of God’s great, creative hand.

In the tiny petal

of a tiny flower

that grew from a tiny pod

is the

miracle

and the

mystery

of all creation

and

GOD.