.
264) 1Thess 5:18 . . Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will
for you in Christ Jesus.
The Greek word for "give thanks" basically means to be grateful. This goes
much deeper than just common courtesy. Appreciation is an attitude; which
Webster's defines as: to value or admire highly.
They say every cloud has a silver lining. Whether that's so or not matters
little as one should never let disagreeable circumstances make them bitter
and resentful towards God; for example:
● Job 1:20-22 . .Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head, and
he fell to the ground and worshiped. And he said: Naked I came from my
mother's womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and The Lord
has taken away. Blessed be the name of The Lord. Through all this Job did
not sin nor did he condemn God.
● Hab 3:17-18 . . Although the fig tree fails to blossom, neither shall fruit be
in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no
food; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in
the stalls: yet I will rejoice in The Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.
● Rom 8:35-39 . .Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall
tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or
sword? Just as it is written: For Thy sake we are being put to death all day
long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.
. . But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved
us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor
height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us
from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I was right in the middle of the Cuban missile crises as a young US Army
paratrooper with the 101st Airborne division back in 1962. My unit was fully
armed and equipped, ready to be in the air within one hour had President
Kennedy given us the green light. A confluence of time and circumstances
made me a part of that incident. In other words: it was just dumb luck.
But it wasn't dumb luck that led me to Christ, no, it was his Father that led
me, and not by happenstance, rather, by a deliberate effort born out of
God's sincere desire to do what's best for me even as a man with a history
of vandalism, dishonesty, theft, arson, and animal cruelty.
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