The General Thanksgiving
// November 30th, 2009 // No Comments » // Affection
Archive for November, 2009
And, we beseech thee, give us that due sense of all thy mercies,
Gratefulnesse
// November 26th, 2009 // No Comments » // Affection
Gratefulnesse
-George Herbert, The Temple (1633)
Thou that hast giv’n so much to me,
Give one thing more, a gratefull heart.
See how thy beggar works on thee
By art.
He makes thy gifts occasion more,
And sayes, If he in this be crost,
All thou hast giv’n him heretofore
Is lost.
But thou didst reckon, when at first
Thy word our hearts and hands did crave,
What it would come to at the worst
To save.
Perpetuall knockings at thy doore,
Tears sullying thy transparent rooms,
Gift upon gift, much would have more,
And comes.
This notwithstanding, thou wentst on,
And didst allow us all our noise:
Nay, thou hast made a sigh and grone
Thy joyes.
Not that thou hast not still above
Much better tunes, then grones can make;
But that these countrey-aires thy love
Did take.
Wherefore I crie, and crie again;
And in no quiet canst thou be,
Till I a thankfull heart obtain
Of thee:
Not thankfull, when it pleaseth me;
As if thy blessings had spare dayes:
But such a heart, whose pulse may be
Thy praise.
The Thanksgiving Exchange
// November 26th, 2009 // No Comments » // Affection
Our country’s original expression of “thankgiving” during this holiday season once led to to worshipful expressions such as these:
Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, peas, beans, squashes, and garden vegetables, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as he has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience.
Now I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and ye little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the day time, on Thursday, November 29th, of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to ye pastor and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings.
William Bradford, the first Thanksgiving Day Proclamation [1] (1623)
WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me “to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANKSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”
George Washington, The First Presidential Thanksgiving Day Proclamation (October 3, 1789)
But now, people’s hearts and minds don’t turn upward to the Creator, they turn downward to the creation, in a strange realization of that Romans 1:24-25 exchange. Turn on the TV and you’ll see that we’ve turned Thanksgiving from a holiday of worship to a celebration of gluttony (i.e. worshipping food) and a pursuit of meaningless recreation (e.g. football). Lord, help me to not exchange your gifts for you, yourself, as the object of my adoration.
Sin as Thanklessness
// November 25th, 2009 // No Comments » // Affection
This is a great passage to ponder during Thanksgiving:
Romans 1:22-23
21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
Luther said that the Apostle Paul wrote Romans to “magnify sin”. The more I read Romans and see Paul’s theology of sin unpacked layer after layer–idolatry, religion, original sin, total depravity, slavery, bondage of the will, lusts and covetousness–the more I see what Luther is getting at with that statement. But in light of the Thanksgiving holiday, I was freshly reminded and wrecked this morning as I thought about my failure to continually thank God for the abundant riches God has blessed me with. I complain endlessly about my money problems, when over half of the world lives on $2 a day. A great article from Al Mohler on this passage from Romans helped me to repent.
Albert Mohler – They Did Not Honor God, or Give Him Thanks
In it he writes:
“This remarkable passage has at its center an indictment of thanklessness. ‘They did not honor Him as God or give thanks’. Paul wants us to understand that the refusal to honor God and give thanks is a raw form of the primal sin. Theologians have long debated the foundational sin — and answers have ranged from lust to pride. Nevertheless, it would seem that being unthankful, refusing to recognize God as the source of all good things, is very close to the essence of the primal sin….To fail in thankfulness is to fail to honor God — and this is the biblical description of fallen and sinful humanity. We are a thankless lot.”
Pursuing Thankfulness, By His Grace…
What is Sin? by David Powlison
// November 25th, 2009 // No Comments » // Doctrine
What Is Sin?
by David Powlison
from The Journal of Biblical Counseling (Spring 2007; Vol. 25, No. 2) pp. 25-26
First, people tend to think of sins in the plural as consciously willed acts where one was aware of and chose not to do the righteous alternative. Sin, in this popular misunderstanding, refers to matters of conscious volitional awareness of wrongdoing and the ability to do otherwise. This instinctive view of sin infects many Christians and almost all non-Christians. It has a long legacy in the church under the label Pelagianism, one of the oldest and most instinctive heresies. The Bible’s view of sin certainly includes the high-handed sins where evil approaches full volitional awareness. But sin also includes what we simply are, and the perverse ways we think, want, remember, and react.
Most sin is invisible to the sinner because it is simply how the sinner works, how the sinner perceives, wants, and interprets things. Once we see sin for what it really is – madness and evil intentions in our hearts, absence of any fear of God, slavery to various passions (Eccl. 9:3; Gen. 6:5; Ps. 36:1; Titus 3:3) – then it becomes easier to see how sin is the immediate and specific problem all counseling deals with at every moment, not a general and remote problem. The core insanity of the human heart is that we violate the first great commandment. We will love anything, except God, unless our madness is checked by grace.
People do not tend to see sin as applying to relatively unconscious problems, to the deep, interesting, and bedeviling stuff in our hearts. But God’s descriptions of sin often highlight the unconscious aspect. Sin – the desires we pursue, the beliefs we hold, the habits we obey as second nature – is intrinsically deceitful. If we knew we were deceived, we would not be deceived. But we are deceived, unless awakened through God’s truth and Spirit. Sin is a darkened mind, drunkenness, animal-like instinct and compulsion, madness, slavery, ignorance, stupor. People often think that to define sin as unconscious removes human responsibility. How can we be culpable for what we did not sit down and choose to do? But the Bible takes the opposite track. The unconscious and semiconscious nature of much sin simply testifies to the fact that we are steeped in it. Sinners think, want, and act sinlike by nature, nurture, and practice.
Praise and Thanksgiving
// November 24th, 2009 // No Comments » // Affection
Praise and Thanksgiving
- Valley of Vision
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 would 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 unseal,
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 sense 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, taste, sweetness,
for social joys of relatives and friends,
for ability to serve others,
for a heart that feels sorrow and necessities,
for a mind 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 language to express,
for what thou are to thy creatures.
Increase my love, O my God, through time and eternity.
Come, ye thankful people, come…
// November 24th, 2009 // No Comments » // Affection
Come, ye thankful people, come
-Henry Alford, 1844
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.
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 shall come, and shall take his harvest home;
From his field shall in that day all offenses purge away,
Giving angels charge at last in the fire the tares to cast;
But the fruitful ears to store in his garner evermore.
Even so, Lord, quickly come, bring thy final harvest home;
Gather thou thy people in, free from sorrow, free from sin,
There, forever purified, in thy garner to abide;
Come, with all Thine angels come, raise the glorious harvest home.
Jesus Storybook Bible (Deluxe Edition)
// November 24th, 2009 // No Comments » // Life
I received two deluxe editions of the Jesus Storybook Bible in the mail last week (one for my daughter and one for my nephew). Written by Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ daughter, Sally Lloyd-Jones, and illustrated by the award-winning artist Jago, this Bible is sure to bring our family years of Gospel-centered devotion and learning. I’m excited for the deluxe edition’s additional narrated CD’s, in which the story is brought to life by award-winning actor David Suchet. This will allow my daughter to read along on her own earlier and experience all the emotion and drama of the story. This is a wonderful gift f0r any parent who desires to teach their children that the Scriptures are not merely a collection of stories designed to teach moral lessons. As Jesus explained to the men walking the road to Emmaus on Resurrection Sunday, the whole Bible is about Jesus. In the words of the subtitle, every story whispers his name…
Buy the Deluxe Edition here.
Calculated to Hide the Pride of Man
// November 14th, 2009 // No Comments » // Affection, Doctrine
It seems to me that much of the teaching we receive apart from Christ is designed to do one thing: help us to make much of ourselves. We are naturally drawn to these teachings because they lift us up and help us to tear others down. We are self-centered to the bone. At least Narcissus was satisfied to simply stare at himself in the mirror, we are so obsessed with ourselves that we kiss the image in the mirror. One thing that reassures me of the validity of Christianity is its brutal offensiveness. The natural conscience would never gravitate to a teaching such as Christ’s. Rather than building up the self, Christianity tears it down, in order that it might be replaced with a new self, the Holy Spirit’s new creation.
Preach the necessity for the Holy Ghost’s divine operations. … ‘Men must be told that they are dead, and that only the Holy Spirit can quicken them; that the Spirit works according to his own good pleasure, and that no man can claim his visitations or deserve his aid. This is thought to be very discouraging teaching, and so it is, but men need to be discouraged when they are seeking salvation in a wrong manner. To put them out of conceit of their own abilities is a great help toward bringing them to look out of self to another, even the Lord Jesus. The doctrine of election and other great truths which declare salvation to be all of grace, and to be, not the right of the creature, but the gift of the Sovereign Lord, are all calculated to hide pride from man, and so prepare him to receive the mercy of God.’
- C.H. Spurgeon (from Lectures to My Students)
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