Riff's Christian Journal

In 1621 the Pilgrims gave Thanks for their first harvest in the New World. The Thanksgiving celebration lasted 3 days and was attended by both the Native Americans and the Pilgrims. It was a time of thanksgiving, prayer and for praising God for making it through the first Winter and for the bounty of the harvest.

Then, in 1863 President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of “Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”

It is plain to see that it is to God that we are to give thanks for the many blessings that we have received over the past year. A good way of showing how to give thanks is shown in Psalm 100, as read from the 1599 Geneva Bible which was one of at least two translations that came over on the Mayflower with the Pilgrims. Psalm 100 reads as follows:

A Psalm of praise.

¹ Sing ye loud unto the Lord, all the earth.

² Serve the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyfulness.

³ Know ye that even the Lord is God; he hath made us, and not we ourselves: we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

⁴ Enter into his gates with praise, and into his courts with rejoicing: praise him and bless his Name.

⁵ For the Lord is good: his mercy is everlasting, and his truth is from generation to generation.

Of course, unless you are a Christian, none of this will have any meaning for you. You are not named among His people and you are not a sheep in His flock. Only by believing on Jesus and bowing before Him, and confessing that He is Lord, will God accept your thanksgiving and praise. For only a Christian can enter into the gates of Heaven with praise and into the courts of God with rejoicing. Only from His children will God accept praise and thanksgiving.

Won’t you become a child of God today? If you will but confess that Jesus is Lord and believe that God has raised Him from the dead will you have been saved by the hand of the Almighty God. Only then will your praise and thanksgiving be meaningful to God.