Thanksgiving Day Message

First off, Happy Thanksgiving to you all! I am blessed to serve and serve with you in our honorable and God-given profession!

BIBLE STUDY this Saturday!
LOCALS and visitors: we WILL meet this Saturday (11/29) as usual for a great hour of Christian-warrior fellowship, Bible study, and prayer. Please join us!


THANKSGIVING:
While the real story of Thanksgiving is not very pretty and rarely taught in schools (see http://www.manataka.org/page269.html), it is nevertheless important to understand history so that we can learn from it. That said, today’s message is that, despite all the problems, God is still on the throne and we HAVE MUCH TO BE THANKFUL FOR! A Biblical word study of “thanksgiving” results in a plethora of passages on the subject. Bottom line is that giving thanks should be part of EVERY prayer we make and is an integral part of worship. In fact, Paul gave thanks even when imprisoned and facing death – and exhorts us to do the same. This Saturday’s study will focus on “thanksgiving” from a Biblical perspective and especially how it relates to us in law enforcement. Our primary text will be Philippians 1:3-11.

While on the subject of Thanksgiving and Christ:

Lincoln's original 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation came - spiritually speaking - at a pivotal point in his life. During the first week of July of that year, the Battle of Gettysburg occurred, resulting in the loss of some 60,000 American lives. Four months later in November, Lincoln delivered his famous "Gettysburg Address." It was while Lincoln was walking among the thousands of graves there at Gettysburg that he committed his life to Christ. As he explained to a friend:

"When I left Springfield [to assume the Presidency] I asked the people to pray for me. I was not a Christian. When I buried my son, the severest trial of my life, I was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg and saw the graves of thousands of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ."

As Americans celebrate Thanksgiving each year, we hope they will retain the original gratefulness to God displayed by the Pilgrims and many other founding fathers, and remember that it is to those early and courageous Pilgrims that they owe not only the traditional Thanksgiving holiday but also the concepts of self-government, the "hard-work" ethic, self-reliant communities, and devout Christian faith.

Following is the 1863 Lincoln Presidential Proclamation - celebrated shortly after Lincoln committed his life to Christ (became a Christian) and celebrated while America was still in the midst of its Civil War. It was this proclamation which eventually led to the establishment of our national Thanksgiving holiday.

By the President of the United States of America

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful years and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the Source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the field of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than theretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States , and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
A. Lincoln

PRAYER REQUESTS (as always, send me your prayer requests or, better yet, come join us on Saturday so we can pray for and with you):

(1) A brother officer is leaving next week to serve in Korea for a year. Please keep Tony Blackman and his wife in your prayers.
(2) A colleague is seeking God’s direction reference his desire to return home to California . Pray for God’s will and direction.
(3) Pray for an officer who is in the midst of a deep depression. He is not a Believer and is resisting help from those that are. Folks, part of our JOB as Christian’s cops and leaders must be to do EVERYTHING we can to stop a colleague from taking their own lives. Shame on us for not intervening when we have the chance. Pray also for Federal Park Ranger (law enforcement) Krysia Baron as she ministers to him.
(4) Pray for a Denver PD officer who is close to accepting Christ as Savior. Lots of doubt but the Holy Spirit is working on him.
(5) Injured CSP Trooper Scott Hinshaw is facing yet more surgery. Please pray for healing and a minimum of pain/recovery issues.
(6) Many of us are working/serving in the field both here and overseas on this Thanksgiving. Please pray for our fellow warriors (military, LEOs, etc.) who are not home with their families today so that others can be. This country has NOT been attacked since 9/11 BECAUSE of their service and God’s protecting Grace.
(7) Keep this ministry in your prayers and continue to hold me accountable!

DON’T FORGET TO PASS THIS ON TO OTHERS! Hope to see you Saturday morning!