“May God our Father himself and our Master Jesus clear the road to you! And may the Master pour on the love so it fills your lives and splashes over on everyone around you, just as it does from us to you. May you be infused with strength and purity, filled with confidence in the presence of God our Father when our Master Jesus arrives with all his followers” (1 Thes. 3:11-13).

Maybe that’s a good Thanksgiving mantra — pour on the love. That’s it. Just love people like you have been loved. Love people like God has loved you.

If you really understand and embrace the love of Christ Jesus, then loving others won’t be nearly as difficult. You know that the love of God is like a flood flowing down to water a single flower, so it can’t help but flow onto those around you.

I do believe that a loving heart is a thankful heart. This Thanksgiving, focus on gratitude. Focus on what you have rather than lamenting what you don’t. I know, I know. Easier said than done sometimes.

But when you can get to the place of choosing joy and thanksgiving over bitterness and entitlement, it really is better. You are better for it. When you can come to the place of forgiving others, not because they deserve it or even ask for it, but because you yourself need to be freed from carrying the weight of resentment, then you can be thankful again.

Let us love well like God loved us, bringing out our best selves in the process. Above all, let’s give thanks that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, demonstrating the greatest love of all.

“Trustfulness is based on confidence in God whose ways I do not understand; if I did, there would be no need for trust” (Oswald Chambers, He Shall Glorify Me).

I suppose it’s impossible for a finite mind to understand the infinite mind of God. If I could completely figure out all of God’s ways and thoughts, then I suppose He wouldn’t be God. A greater mind would be able to comprehend a lesser mind but not the other way around.

If I understood all of God and His plan, then there really would be not need for faith. It would be logic. I could give myself some credit for figuring out God. But that’s not at all what Scripture says. It says that salvation is by faith and not of my own doing.

Even my own faith is a gift from God. That makes me humble but also grateful. Above all, it shows me how completely dependent on God I am at every waking or sleeping moment of my life. I can look back through all the years of my life and find only faithfulness.

So even when it doesn’t make sense, I’m choosing to trust anyway. Even when it runs counter to my intuition, I’m choosing to trust anyway. Even when I think I know better, I’m choosing to trust anyway.

In the end, my faith will be made sight. I will be able to look back at all those times when faith won out over fear and trust over doubt and realize that God knew what I didn’t and could see what I could not. His plans were better all along.

“My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you’ve been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. You’re deeply rooted in him. You’re well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you’ve been taught. School’s out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving” (Colossians 2:6-7, The Message).

That’s it. Maybe we don’t need another Bible study. Maybe we don’t need another book on Christian living. Maybe what we need is to start living what we already know. There is such a thing as knowing too much if it doesn’t make it’s way from your head to your heart and then to your hands and feet.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all about the next Bible study and the next book. But it’s all for naught if it doesn’t translate into a different way of living. The problem with the way we learn is that we were trained to study in order to pass tests and then immediately forget what we studied. But that leads to knowledge of useless information instead of wisdom.

What we need is to learn in such a way that we rewire our actions and habits. Better yet, we learn to grow and be more like Jesus. We learn not to obtain information but to be renewed and transformed and enabled to obey what we know. Then we are ready for more.

“Gratitude is an offering precious in the sight of God, and it is one that the poorest of us can make and be not poorer but richer for having made it” (A.W. Tozer).

I wonder if we actually took time this Thanksgiving to give actual thanks, would it change our perspective a little? Would we be as anxious to rush out the next morning and trample over people to buy a lot of what we don’t need for people who don’t need it?

I’m definitely not knocking Black Friday. I do think that Thanksgiving as a holiday has become National Turkey Day and the gateway to Christmas and all things Christmas shopping. But I’m convicted more and more that gratitude doesn’t naturally flow out of me unless I’m intentional about choosing it. By default, I’m much more inclined to default to a mentality of entitlement rather than gratitude.

So to keep it short tonight, take some time this Thanksgiving to give thanks for the food in front of you and the people around you and the roof over your head. Remember all those who died so that we could have the freedom to worship and celebrate freely as we choose. And be sure to say your thanks out loud, both to God and to each other.

I think every believer at some point will face an obstacle that seems impossible. Maybe it’s an illness. Maybe it’s relational turmoil. Maybe it’s a job loss. Whatever it is, it can feel like the end, like staring at a great abyss with no way over.

But the older I get, the more I’ve come to believe that God is a God who specializes in making the impossible possible. In fact, I heard a pastor say once that to God impossible isn’t even remotely difficult. It’s easy.

Perhaps, you and I need to stop staring at what we can’t do and start focusing on what God can do. Maybe we need to believe in faith for God’s provision and take the next step. We can start by praying for discernment over what that next step looks like. We can pray for wisdom, claiming the promise that God isn’t stingy in handing out wisdom but gives generously to those who ask.

I think above all we need to remember that as much as we as God’s children want God to do right by us, God as our Heavenly Father wants even more to give good things to us as His children even more so than any earthly parent. His idea of what is good for us may not always match what we think that should look like, but in the end it ends up being better and what we would have chosen had we known what He knows.

Trust in the God who makes a way through Red Seas. Trust in the God who walks on water. Trust in the God who raises up people out of the grave and makes them live again. Then you will see that nothing is really impossible for God.

“Abraham, at this point, has reached the place where he is in touch with the very nature of God. He now understands the reality of God.

My goal is God himself . . .

At any cost, dear Lord, by any road.

It is through the discipline of obedience that I get to the place where Abraham was and I see who God is. God will never be real to me until I come face to face with Him in Jesus Christ. Then I will know and can boldly proclaim, ‘In all the world, my God, there is none but Thee, there is none but Thee'” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest).

Honestly, that thought scares me a bit. At any cost? Just how much will it cost? And how much will it hurt?

But then I remember that there’s nothing worth nearly as much as the joy of knowing Christ. There’s no price I could ever pay that begins to compare with what He paid for me.

Anything else I could ever dream about or desire is like sand to a parched throat compared to the Living Water. I think about all those times I wanted all sorts of presents for Christmas that I couldn’t wait to possess but almost immediately grew tired of or lost interest in after I got them.

In the end, Jesus is my greatest joy. Everything else is a shadow and a copy. Everything good was merely pointing to Him. When everything else passes away, Jesus will remain and will still be the fulfillment of every longing of my heart and soul even into eternity.