What do you call a politician with half a brain?

 

Gifted

 

  I would like us today to think about our many gifts from God and what our response should be.

 

James 1:17 “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning.”

 

   In this epistle by Saint James he reminds us that many wonderful gifts come from God and of course we need to always keep this in mind and properly thank him for them.

 

   It isn't always easy for us to remember to thank God for all of his blessings to us.

 

We too often get so caught up in our problems as we travel through this “vale of tears”.

 

We find it all too easy to focus on our troubles and sometimes neglect to consider the many wonderful ways God has blessed each of us.

 

   In our wonderful Book of Common Prayer, (which we as Anglicans need to remember to thank God for!), near the end of our Morning and Evening Prayer service, (after we have asked our many petitions of God), we together, both clergy and congregation, say the General Thanksgiving.

 

   In it we thank our Heavenly Father for creating us, preserving or protecting us, and “all the blessings of this life”.

 

  Most of all however, we thank him for sending Jesus Christ into the world to redeem us and cleanse us with his precious blood.

 

  Through Christ's sacrifice on the cross he removes sin from us that otherwise would separate us from God forever. 

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  Only Christ could do that for us.

 

   This “inestimable” or immeasurable love allows us, to be at the last, with God for eternity and must make us want to serve him and so “show forth” his praise “not only with our lips, but in our lives”.

 

In other words we need, as Christians, to not just “talk the talk”, but also serve God by giving our best efforts to assist building His Church to bring others to Christ.

 

He has given each of us talents that we can, and should, use for this purpose.

 

So as we thank God for our many blessings, let us remember to show that we are truly thankful by committing ourselves to work for the spread of his kingdom all the days of our life.

 

  We should always be as the psalmist as he says to God :

(Psalm 116 v15) I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, * and will call upon the Name of the LORD.

 

Let us pray

 

A Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the Fruits of the Earth and all the other Blessings of his merciful Providence. p.50 BCP
 

  MOST gracious God, by whose knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down the dew; We yield thee unfeigned thanks and praise for the return of seed-time and harvest, for the increase of the ground and the gathering in of the fruits thereof, and for all the other blessings of thy merciful providence bestowed upon this nation and people. And, we beseech thee, give us a just sense of these great mercies; such as may appear in our lives by an humble, holy, and obedient walking before thee all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost, be all glory and honour, world without end. Amen.