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THE NORTHERN KENTUCKY SEARCHER VOLUME 4, NUMBER 49, DECEMBER 5, 2004 THANK YOU Do you recall a series of commercials that ran not too long ago in which a person would make an embarrassing statement, and then extradite themselves from that situation by telling the person “Thank You?” The one that comes to my mind involved two ladies in a grocery store. One asked the other when she was due, and the problem was the lady was not pregnant. After a few moments of embarrassed silence, the offending lady simply said, “Thank you”, and that immediately eased the tension and completely changed the situation. From an advertising standpoint I don’t think that was a very good ad campaign, because for the life of me I cannot remember what they were advertising. However, from a lessons learned standpoint, I thought it was pretty good. Think of the power of gratitude. Think of the power of thankfulness. It is a subject about which the Bible has a lot to say. Over and over we are exhorted to display thankfulness to God. In Psalm 50: 14, we read “Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most High:” Psalm 69:30-31, indicates God’s desire for thankfulness from man. The passage says, “I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving. This also shall please the Lord better than an ox or bullock that hath horns and hoofs.” The New Testament is filled with calls for us to remember to be thankful. Consider Ephesians 5:18-20. Paul wrote, “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Colossians is filled with exhortations to gratitude. In Col. 2:6-7, we find, “As ye have therefore receive Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.” In chapter 3:15-17, Paul urged, “And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ well in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.” Chapter 4:2, tells us, “Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving.” Everything we have, everything we are, and everything we can be, is because of the wondrous gifts of God. James tells us in James 1:17, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” I remember when I was a young child. I may very well have been in the first grade. The nun who was my teacher told a little story, and while the details of the story were simply made up, the moral of it has stuck with me to this day. She told of two angels being sent out by God. One was given a basket in which to collect all the requests that man made that day. The other was given a basket to collect all of the expressions of thanks from man. The one with the requests had an overflowing basket. The one with the expressions of thanks had but one. I never forgot that lesson. Thanksgiving and gratitude are not to be confined to simply man to God. There are so many examples of gratitude from man to man. I think of what Paul wrote in Romans 16:1-4. The passage says, “I commend unto you Phebe our sister, which is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea: that ye receive her in the Lord, as becometh saints, and that ye assist her in whatsoever business she hath need of you: for she hath been a succourer of many, and of myself also. Greet Priscilla and Aquila my helpers in Christ Jesus: who have for my life laid down their own necks: unto whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles.” I never cease to be amazed at the power of thank you. I have been in stores where the clerk waiting on me seemed to be in the worse possible mood and on the brink of biting someone’s head off. But when I said, “thank you,” for their help, a smile lit up their face. A simple “thank you” to brethren for work done, for effort put forth, means so very much and it doesn’t cost me a thing. As a matter of fact, I get something back from it. I get the satisfaction of seeing a smile on the face of someone who might have thought that nobody noticed. So, thanks to the Bible class teachers – you do a great work. Thanks to Joe and Eric for their work of organizing those classes, and to Danny Brewer for all the years that he did that. Thanks to all the elders for the immense amount of work they do and so selflessly. Thanks to all of the deacons for everything you do. I can well imagine that you often feel like very few people notice. Thanks to all of the members who volunteer to clean the building, cut the grass,(special mention here to Mark and Ashley Insprucker and to Deron Saylor), who prepare the Lord’s Supper, and so many other things. Thanks to Steve and Tammy for making the charts for the children to fill in as I am preaching. Thanks to all of the parents who bring their children faithfully and to all the members who make every visitor to our services feel so welcome. Thanks to Vicky who knows my “thorn in the flesh” but loves me and supports me anyway. Oh, the power of gratitude and “thank you.” Greg Litmer Have you ever noticed that the weaknesses we see in others frequently seem to be the very ones we also have?
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