FEASTING WITH THE KING

Deuteronomy 11:1-12:32; Luke 8:22-39; Psalm 70:1-5; Proverbs 12:4

“There you and your families will feast in the presence of the Lord your God, and you will rejoice in all you have accomplished because the Lord your God has blessed you.”

 “Jesus sent him home, saying, “No, go back to your family, and tell them everything God has done for you.” So he went all through the town proclaiming the great things Jesus had done for him.

“But may all who search for you be filled with joy and gladness in you.
May those who love your salvation repeatedly shout, ‘God is great!’”

We are so blessed this Thanksgiving to have so much family gathered around us. Our children, our daughter-in-law, her mother and her grandmother have all come to celebrate with us what has been, by all accounts, a tumultuous year of change, but also of great blessing. Mom and Dad, fully recovered from their accident, will be surrounded by their own friends many miles away, while at the same time, my brother’s tribe will be filling his house with love and the requisite wisecracks that are an unspoken ritual of our family. But none of these three idyllic, Norman Rockwell images of Thanksgiving will be complete without the guest of honor, Jesus Christ.

Blessings are wonderful, and any thankfulness is a good and honorable thing. But if our gratitude is not intentionally directed to the Giver of all blessings, whatever appreciation may be felt is misdirected and only half-celebrated. Thanksgiving, without acknowledgement of God’s hand in it, is little more than a happy thought (or worse, an empty ritual). It should, and can, be so much more. Like the King’s banquet in Scripture, Thanksgiving has the capacity to bring us into the very heart of the Spirit. It only requires an intentional naming of our blessings, and a willingness to give credit for them where credit is really due. Undoubtedly, there will be those this year who do not feel they have much to give thanks for. For them, more than most, Thanksgiving provides the chance to reconnect with Christ. If absolutely nothing else gives hope, He does. An inability to give thanks frequently indicates a focus on the wrong things.

Christians are going to live forever in heaven with their Creator, bound in fellowship to every soul who has ever called Christ Savior! If we cannot find it in our hearts to be grateful for that, our hearts are hard indeed. We are guaranteed that our eternity will be a constant celebration of praise and ultimate love and security! If our list of blessings doesn’t include this, we are letting Satan and the cares of this world limit our perspective too much. This Thanksgiving, let’s be sure to invite the Holy Spirit to our feasts, whether they consist of turkey and all the trimmings or simply Saltines. When we lose the ability to give thanks to God, by definition, the defeat which we concede is far more devastating than we might think. It has eternal dimensions, and eternal consequences. The King invites all to His Table who will come. The invitation is given. Come, let us feast together, and be together with our Lord!