I don’t fully understand why, but this Thanksgiving 2011, I am particularly and very emotionally thinking of and deeply thankful for our American servicemen and women who are fighting so valiantly in Afghanistan and Iraq. They bravely walk with danger, look death in the face, and often lose life and limb so that Americans like us can celebrate Thanksgiving Day in freedom and peace.

We are so indebted to those who have come home dead or alive, and have served with highest distinction if not outright heroism. We can't thank God enough for them, and we cannot ever show ample gratitude to them and their families. Not every American family hears the indescribably wonderful and golden words of their son or daughter when they return from battle, "I'm home."  Many will never come home again.

What follows is a powerful lesson from Israel's history. The children of Israel had, by the blood of the Passover Lamb, come out of 430 years of slavery in Egypt. The Afro-American citizens of America can relate to this as no other people can. They are still slowly but surely coming out.

Hundreds of thousands of Israelites were approaching that very harsh, mountainous, wilderness area called Sinai. With that many people, there are always stragglers lagging behind, such as children, older folks, and the slower ones. Suddenly, out of the hills of the Sinai came desert terrorists known as the Amalekites. If you will, Amalek and his Ites. Amalek was the Osama Bin Laden of the Sinai. These terrorists did not attack the main body of the Israelites. They jumped on the halting, the weary, and the helpless young and old who brought up the rear. (Deuteronomy 25:18.)

A strange new Americanism some time ago arrived on the scene in our society which from the very first time I heard it, I found very frustrating and irritating. At first I did not know why there was that dis-ease in my spirit when I heard it.

I now hear it over and over again ad nauseum all over the place. I have noticed that my grandchildren and even my married children are using it as a response. You and I know how easy it is to become echoes of our society and conform to this world.  It is the word, WHATEVER. From the very first time I began to hear it, for some unknown reasons I developed a headache which pain began to travel down to my heart.

Nations Compared To God - Nothing But Flies And Bees

Sometimes God speaks to us in truths that are both bitter and sweet at the same time. He speaks to us in terms of both warning and comfort simultaneously. He has an unequaled knack in doing that throughout His Word. We hear Him speaking that exact way in Isaiah 7:18 where He says through the prophet Isaiah to King Ahaz of Judah, "And it will come about in that day, that the Lord will whistle for the fly that is in the remotest part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria."

There is a spiritual river that cannot be seen by the physical eye, but it is just as real as “The Mighty Mississippi” or “The Blue Danube.” There is a river that powerfully flows in the spiritual dimension, and I first saw it in a vision while I was preaching on a Sunday morning many years ago. It was flowing toward me underneath the floor boards and down the center aisle of the church sanctuary. I felt the wind in my hair and the spray on my face. As if the vision was not enough, it had to be a wind-blown and a faced-sprayed vision too.

Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia was asked to judge a contest for the purpose of finding the most caring child. What follows are the winners and their comments to some very searching questions. Hope you are as blessed by them as I am. Here are the winners.

1. A four year old child lived next door to an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the elderly man crying, the little boy went into the old gentleman’s yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there for quite a period of time. When the little lad’s mother asked him what he said to the neighbor, the little boy simply said,

“NOTHING MOMMY, I JUST SAT THERE AND HELPED HIM CRY.”

We were at the funeral of a dear brother in Christ by the name of Joe this past week. Joe loved the Lord Jesus and served Him with an incomparable smile on his face his entire adult life. Joe was a blessed farmer and he knew full well what it meant to rely upon the Lord for healthy herds and crops. His story is a very good one with a most happy ending, as he now joins his Lord and his precious wife Wilma in glory.

Joe will be deeply missed by this writer, for to meet him was to be greeted by a strong and unfeigned love and warmth. There was no self in Joe, and when he met you, it was all about you and not about himself. His was never a greeting of simply proper etiquette, but of genuine affection and interest. When I think of Joe, I think of I Peter 1:22,

“Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a

sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another

from the heart.”

There is an old expression that goes like this, “If you have seen one, you’ve seen ‘em all.” Or course, it may be true depending on what you are looking at, but it is more often not true and a gross over-simplification as well as a terrible lack of appreciation when it comes to the uniqueness and specialness of each individual.

But there is the flip side of that coin that is also being tossed around today which says, “If you look at them all, you are looking at all one and the same.” When it comes right down to it, it is the identical  thing that is being stated but in reverse order.

1.

"Come and hear, all who fear God, and I will tell of what

He has done for my soul.”

“Only those who fear the God of salvation in  this
  world will have nothing to fear from
God in the next world.”


“GOD-FEARING TESTIFIERS ARE ALWAYS FOCUSED ON THE
ETERNAL AND NOT THE TEMPORAL, ON THE SPIRITUAL
AND NOT ON THE MATERIAL, ON THE INTERNAL
AND NOT ON THE EXTERNAL.”

“The wicked flee when no man is pursuing, but the righteous
are bold as a lion.”

Matthew 10:28,

“And do not fear those who kill the body….”

“IF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS AND FEARFULLNESS WOULD BE
VIRTUES, THERE WOULD BE NO MARTYRS.”

“ONLY THE RIGHTEOUS ARE VALIANT AND LIONHEARTED,
AND READILY CHOOSE DUTY WHEN FACING DANGER
AND DEATH.”