Thanksgiving is my Favorite Holiday!

Thanksgiving is the best of all holidays!

Have you noticed how Halloween and Christmas seem to crowd out the holiday between them. Its sort of like the little sapling growing in between to towering oaks in the forest.

The stores take down the skulls and witches and immediately replace them with Santas and Christmas trees. Don’t misunderstand. I hold no ill will toward Halloween or Christmas. But what about my favorite holiday – Thanksgiving!

I want to take just a moment and tell you why Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.

I have three basic reasons why I think Thanksgiving is the greatest of all the holidays: historical reasons; scriptural reasons; and personal reasons.

Historical Reasons

Thanksgiving has a rich history. The 1st winter in the New World was brutal(1620-21) on the Pilgrims. The beaver and the Bible were their mainstays. Of the original 102 only 44 survived. After the first harvest Governor Bradford and the pilgrim fathers decided to have a feast of Thanksgiving. Ninety Indians joined in. For three days they enjoyed preaching, featsing, talking and games.

That was 378 years ago and marked the beginning of the holiday we celebrate today.
President George Washington and the newly formed government continued the tradition of the Pilgrims by proclaiming November 26, 1789 as a national day of thanksgiving.
In 1863 of nation raged with the noised of civil war. Brother fought against brother over the issue of state’s rights. As fresh blood soaked the earth of a hundred battle fields, Abraham Lincoln set aside the fourth Thursday in November as a national day of thankfulness to God.

Personal Reasons

I’m not against any holiday, but I am partial to Thanksgiving. Let me give a few negative reasons: it's not compromised w/ paganism; it's not complicated; it's not commercialized.

There are positive ones as well: family oriented; and faith affirming.

When I was boy my folks loaded us kids in the car every thanksgiving to go to Mama and Papa Hartley’s house. All the Hartley clan would be there and I always looked forward to it. With the passing years I don’t go as much, but I wouldn’t take a million dollars for the memories.

Many of you could tell similar stories. And what a wonderful opportunity to start a new tradition with my children. And you have the same opportunity.

Scriptural Reasons

This reason alone would be enough. And of all the reasons, this is the greatest.
1 Chr. 16:8 “Give thanks unto the LORD, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the people.”
Ps. 30:4 “Sing unto the LORD, O ye saints of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness.”
Ps. 100:4 “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him and bless his holy name.”
Ep. 5:20 “Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The Lord God who is seated upon the throne of all the universe commands His people to be thankful. Thankfulness doesn’t mean that we are laughing and giggling like some twit. You can be thankful with tears of sorrow coursing down your cheeks. You can be thankful in the midst of disappointment. You can be thankful in the face of personal crisis.

When you are thankful you are in the will of God; When you are unthankful you are out of the will of God. 1 Thess 5:18 “In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”

Don’t tell me you can’t because God has said you can. He never give a command that he doesn’t also give the ability to carry out the command.

The story is told of John Gray, a preacher who never failed to thank God, no matter how bad things got. One Sunday he battled through wind and sleet to preach at a little village. The congregation was small. The people wonder what the preacher would could find to be thankful for. When it came time to pray, the preacher lifted his eyes toward heaven and said, “This is a wretched day, dear Lord, no doubt about it; but we thank Thee, Lord, that ever day isn’t as bad as this one!”

When we are thankful it shows we are filled with the spirit. When we are unthankful it shows that we are not filled with the spirit (see Ep. 5:18-20).

We are never more like Christ than when we are giving thanks to God. And we are never more like the lost world when we are unthankful.

Thankfulness rises from an obedient heart, while unthankfulness rises from a disobedient heart. The word “thank” in the Bible comes from the word eucharistew. The root word is charis. This is the word for grace. We’ve heard people at the supper table asking someone to say “grace.” This is Scriptural. When you say thank you to God, you are saying I don’t deserve what I’m getting. People today think they deserve something and they demand their part.

There was a man at the second church I pastored who was dying of Emphysema. He contracted the disease as a result of chemicals he was exposed to at his work site. He died a slow death by suffocation. I preached his funeral. At Thomas’ request they sang “Why Me Lord.”
Why me Lord what have I ever done
to deserve even one the pleasures I’ve known?
Tell me, Lord, what did I ever do
That was worth lovin’ you or the kindness
you’ve shown?

That last testimony has always stuck with me. I cannot remember for the life of me what text I read or what I said, but I remember the hymn of thankfulness that Thomas requested.

Another aspect of being unthankful is the fact that People think they don’t deserve things. They don’t think they deserve detention hall; they don’t think they deserve a ticket from the police; They don’t think they deserve prison time. They don’t think they deserve judgement; They don’t think they deserve hell. Part of thankfulness is thanking God for the good and the bad. Everything isn’t good, but everything works for good.

Maybe your guilty of having an unthankful heart, God will forgive you if you’ll come to His son Jesus.

Maybe your saved but you’ve lost the attitude of gratitude you ought to have. Tell God that your struggling and ask Him to help you.

I think everyone needs to be encouraged in the area of thankfulness. When you publically say, “I’m struggling and need help” God does something special in our lives.

Capital Baptist Fellowship Capital Christian Institute
Great Divide Chaplain Services


Dear Partners in the Gospel:

Thank you all for your monthly support and prayers. May our Father smile on you all for your generosity toward His work in Helena, Montana!

Our Father works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform. An expression is cliché only if it is not true -- the before used expression is altogether true! I see our Father working in unusual ways every week. He orchestrates and maneuvers events and people. He causes my path to cross the paths of others at providential moments and allows coalescence to occur at unexpected times. Divine serendipity always surrounds me and I never know what or who may lay around the next turn. I want to share an example of our Father’s constant working to redeem to Himself a people.

About a year ago I met “J” while doing a Bible study at an apartment building downtown. He has been a tremendous blessing and I see how our Father uses “J” to move the kingdom and the church forward each week. Well, through “J” I was introduced to another person named “J2” while doing street ministry downtown. At the time the new person’s girlfriend was being visited by Mormon missionaries. “J2” and his girlfriend visited the Mormon temple and she was very interested in Mormonism. “J” was told by “J2” that his girlfriend wanted me to come to her home and do a Bible study. Though busy beyond belief, I found a night we could go and we did. The Bible study was very personal and a God-thing to be sure. During that Bible I briefly met the girlfriend’s elderly dad. He did not sit in on the Bible study. Instead, he sat about eight feet away in the living room watching television (or so I thought). A week later the girlfriend’s dad fell. My friend “J” called to tell me about the dad's fall and said the dad asked for me. I dropped everything and drove to the emergency room to visit and pray with him. While at the emergency room I met another of his daughters named “A”. Over the next few weeks I visited the dad in the hospital and eventually the nursing home. So, I kept seeing the family and praying with them. This past week the dad’s daughter “A” that I met in the emergency room came to the Bible study at the apartments with my friend “J”. She already knows much of the gospel, but has been neither discipled nor baptized. When I spoke with her about this she said she wants to be baptized and I hope she follows through soon! Our Father neither slumbers nor sleeps -- He always and in every circumstance works His perfect will. Pray for all our Father’s divine appointments and that we faithfully act and speak up for Him.

Daily we are putting together the puzzle of Father’s plan for our ministry and for Capital Baptist Fellowship! Thank you for being a piece in that wonderful puzzle!


Happy Thanksgiving!


Parish and Jeanne Ann Hartley
church planter missionaries
Helena, Montana