It's time to round the corner into the Christmas season this week! As we celebrate Thanksgiving, I want to encourage you to begin your heart's focus of gratitude on the Gospel--God's work of grace in your life to bring you into His family. Let this be the first topic of your talk, the first entry into your Moleskin, and the constant theme of your meditation and rejoicing this week. Let Paul's words saturate your affections each day: "For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins" (Col 1:13-14). Never get over the fact that the Lord who initiated your salvation sustains it every moment into eternity!
If this is the starting point of our Thanksgiving reflections this week, it will impact every conversation, testimony, witness, relationship and quiet times each day. I'll call it "Gospel Traction" that will put you on solid footing, facing the right direction as you enter the month-long celebration of the Incarnation.
Perhaps the following Puritan prayer will be a help in this regard. It is a great blessing and challenge to my heart every time I read it. It fleshes out Paul's words in First Corinthians 10:30--"But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption."
Yes, feast this week.
My Father,
I could never have sought my happiness
in thy love,
unless thou had’st first loved me.
Thy Spirit has encouraged me by grace to seek thee,
has made known to me thy reconciliation in Jesus,
has taught me to believe it,
has helped me to take thee for my God
and portion.
May he grant me to grow in the knowledge
and experience of thy love,
and walk in it all the way to glory.
Blessed for ever be thy fatherly affection,
which chose me to be one of thy children
by faith in Jesus:
I thank thee for giving me the desire to live as such.
In Jesus, my brother, I have my new birth,
every restraining power,
every renewing grace.
It is by thy Spirit I call thee Father,
believe in thee, love thee;
Strengthen me inwardly for every purpose
of my Christian life;
Let the Spirit continually reveal to me my interest
in Christ,
and open to me the riches of thy love in him;
May he abide in me that I may know my union
with Jesus,
and enter into constant fellowship with him;
By thy Spirit may I daily live to thee,
rejoice in thy love,
find it the same to me as to thy Son,
and become rooted and grounded in it
as a house on rock;
I know but little—
increase my knowledge of thy love in Jesus,
keep me pressing forward for clearer discoveries
of it,
so that I may find its eternal fullness;
Magnify thy love to me according to its greatness,
and not according to my deserts or prayers,
and whatever increase thou givest,
let it draw out greater love to thee.
—from The Valley of Vision, Arthur Bennett, editor (Banner of Truth Trust, 2002).
I could never have sought my happiness
in thy love,
unless thou had’st first loved me.
Thy Spirit has encouraged me by grace to seek thee,
has made known to me thy reconciliation in Jesus,
has taught me to believe it,
has helped me to take thee for my God
and portion.
May he grant me to grow in the knowledge
and experience of thy love,
and walk in it all the way to glory.
Blessed for ever be thy fatherly affection,
which chose me to be one of thy children
by faith in Jesus:
I thank thee for giving me the desire to live as such.
In Jesus, my brother, I have my new birth,
every restraining power,
every renewing grace.
It is by thy Spirit I call thee Father,
believe in thee, love thee;
Strengthen me inwardly for every purpose
of my Christian life;
Let the Spirit continually reveal to me my interest
in Christ,
and open to me the riches of thy love in him;
May he abide in me that I may know my union
with Jesus,
and enter into constant fellowship with him;
By thy Spirit may I daily live to thee,
rejoice in thy love,
find it the same to me as to thy Son,
and become rooted and grounded in it
as a house on rock;
I know but little—
increase my knowledge of thy love in Jesus,
keep me pressing forward for clearer discoveries
of it,
so that I may find its eternal fullness;
Magnify thy love to me according to its greatness,
and not according to my deserts or prayers,
and whatever increase thou givest,
let it draw out greater love to thee.
—from The Valley of Vision, Arthur Bennett, editor (Banner of Truth Trust, 2002).