Many Thanksgivings.
Initially my mind fills with images of parades on TV, family laughing together, football and amazing feasts with more dishes than I can eat yet try anyway!
Many of my Thanksgivings have been filled with those things, and I’m thankful.
But more solid than those delights is the truth I’m learning about our great God through the Bible and through your example at West Park.
2 Corinthians 9 describes the collection of money for the famine relief in Jerusalem. The Corinthian believers were at a crossroads: either they would believe in the abundant grace of Jehovah-Jireh and give or they would hoard and focus on their own needs exclusively.
Paul taught them, and by extension us today, that “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. (2 Cor. 9:8).
God is able. Not God will (as good as that would be) but that He is able. This draws our attention away from our misplaced security in things or even the misplaced security in what God will do for us and compels us to look to God alone, for He is able to make all grace abound to us for every good work. As we look to God, trusting in His all-sufficiency, we will want others to know what we know and experience what we experience:
All grace
All sufficiency
In all things at all times
In every good work.
God frees us to be generous toward others, to meet needs, to give without expectation of receiving. For this is how our God is toward us His people.
Ultimately our faith-fueled generosity leads to “many thanksgivings to God” (2 Cor. 9:12).
This thanksgiving weekend, thank you, beloved brothers and sisters, for showing me what generosity looks like. This month of trusting God has reminded me that thanksgivings should be many and not just one day. Through your generosity in the offering, the Thanksgiving boxes and the shoe boxes, I’m blown away and give to our Father the many thanksgivings He deserves.