Having just celebrated Thanksgiving in worship and family gatherings, it’s time to repay God.  I know those words are theologically dangerous.  Yet Psalm 116:12 poses the question, “How can I repay the Lord for all His goodness to me?” 

The psalmist surely knows we can never repay God for all of His goodness for us.  Pay Him back for sacrificing His only Son to redeem us from sin and death?  No way!  It just can’t be done, question closed, right?  Well then, why the question?

God doesn’t demand repayment.  But He does call us to live lives of thanks and service for Him.  Children can never repay their parents for the years of sacrificial caring they receive.  Parents ask for two responses: that their children love them as they are loved, and be willing to pass their love on to the next generation.  We children of the Heavenly Father “repay” or live our response in the same two ways: by loving Him and passing on that love to others through what we say and do!

When we slip in our love for God and our service to others, we need only remember “all His goodness to me!”  That goodness begins with His forgiving me over and over again for my sins through my Savior Jesus Christ.  It continues with so many blessings that flow into my life.  Just take a moment and count those blessings and you will from the heart exclaim, “How can I repay the Lord?”

God has no problem supplying us with opportunities for us to respond, that is, to be thanks-filled worshipers of our good God, to be thanks-filled examples to our families and the young ones around us, and to do good for the least, the last and the lost so that they too can know and live for Jesus!

I thank God for each of you!!  Love, Pastor Craig

How can I repay the Lord for all His goodness to me?  I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.  I will fulfill my vows to the Lord in the presence of all His people.  Psalm 116:12-14

Can you believe it?  Ever since Halloween, media has been pushing pushing the world’s idea of Christmas!  I have a dear friend that often reminds me of how many days left before Christmas.  Yet in the church there’s still Thanksgiving and Advent ahead to prepare us to celebrate our Savior’s birth.

With November how important it is for us to remember Thanksgiving.  It becomes the heart-set to the Advent and Christmas seasons to follow.  This morning I read Psalm 116 in my devotion.  The question raised by the psalmist gives us Thanksgiving pause:  “How can I repay the Lord for all His goodness to me?”

During gift purchasing for the celebration of Christmas, many of us will jokingly complain about how hard it is to buy a gift for the person who has everything.  The joking pun (especially by the fiscally minded like me) is to then say, “I will just give them the gift of myself.”  With God, it’s not just a joking matter, but a serious challenge.  God does have everything!  Everything, including ourselves, is the work of His creative hands.  This puts us into a position of obligation.  We owe our lives and everything we have to God.  So, how do we respond to the psalmist’s question?  How do we express ourselves to the God who has given each of us life and eternal life in His Son, Jesus Christ?

Fortunately, we’re not left to guess.  The Bible tells us what God is looking for from us.  He is looking for nothing more than a sincere “thank you!”  God expects us to receive His generous gifts with a thankful heart.  That’s what Thanksgiving is all about.  How could we not be moved to gratitude when we think of the lengths to which God has gone to create us and then to redeem us in the death and resurrection of Jesus?  Our heavenly Father loves us so much He gives the gift of His Son!

God in His Word also repeatedly stresses that He expects our thanks be given to Him in worship!  I’m sorry to pop the bubble of all those who brush God off with the comment, “I can worship God anywhere, at home or on the golf course.”  Well, no, the psalmist says, “I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.  I will fulfill my vows to the Lord in the presence of all His people.”  When we gather to worship, whether during the time of Thanksgiving or during Advent  or on Christmas or any Sunday, it is with the purpose of thanking and praising God, giving to Him the only thing which He really asks in return for His generous blessings:  grateful worship offered to Him in faith and love.  And then a life filled with thankful worship through loving acts for others

May our worship on Thanksgiving Eve (7:00 p.m. with a pie fellowship) throughout Advent and at Christmas (Eve:  5 & 8 p.m. and Day:  11:00 a.m.) swell with the hearts and voices of God’s thankful people who take time to thank God for all His goodness to us!  I give God thanks for each of you!  Love in Christ, Pastor Craig

I share an illustration I came across as I worked on my Message for Sunday (based on the healing of the bleeding woman through touching Jesus).  At Holy Faith we have an active and sincere sharing of Christ’s peace in worship.  As the Lord’s Supper is the pinnacle of worship and receiving God’s grace and peace through His Word the heart of our worship, the sharing of Christ’s peace plays an important part as we share with each other the healing power of what we have received in Christ!  Here it is:

Touch in Church

What is all this touching in church? It used to be a person could come to church and sit in the pew and not be bothered by all this friendliness and certainly not by touching.  I used to come to church and leave untouched. Now I have to be nervous about what’s expected of me. I have to worry about responding to the person sitting next to me.  Oh, I wish it could be the way it used to be; I could just ask the person next to me:  How are you?  And the person could answer:  Oh, just fine, And we’d both go home…strangers who have known each other for twenty years.

But now the minister asks us to look at each other. I’m worried about that hurt look I saw in that woman’s eyes.  Now I’m concerned, because when the minister asks us to greet one another, the man next to me held my hand so tightly I wondered if he had been touched in years.  Now I’m upset because the lady next to me cried and then apologized and said it was because I was so kind and that she needed a friend right now. 

Now I have to get involved. Now I have to suffer when this community suffers. Now I have to be more than a person coming to observe a service.  That man last week told me I’d never know how much I’d touched his life.  All I did was smile and tell him I understood what it was to be lonely.  Lord, I’m not big enough to touch and be touched! The stretching scares me.  What if I disappoint somebody? What if I’m too pushy? What if I cling too much? What if somebody ignores me?

“Pass the peace!” “The peace of Christ be with you!”  “And also with you!” And mean it. Lord, I can’t resist meaning it! I’m touched by it, I’m enveloped by it! I find I do care about that person next to me! I find I AM involved! And I’m scared.  O Lord, be here beside me. You touch me, Lord, so that I can touch and be touched! So that I can care and be cared for! So that I can share my life with all those others that belong to you!  All this touching in church — Lord, it’s changing me!  What was it our audacious friend said so many centuries ago? “If I but touch…I will be healed.”  (David E. Leininger, Christian Globe Illustrations, www.eSermons.com)

Keep sharing Christ’s peace with all your heart!  With His presence in your heart you truly mean it!  Pastor Craig

A young mom was driving her 3-year-old child to church early on Easter morning. As she drove she told the Easter story. “This is the day we celebrate Jesus coming back to life.” From the back seat she heard, “Will He be in church today?”  How cute that child’s question!  The Good News for her and each of us is that He is there with us.  The tomb could not hold Him back.  Our risen Savior has burst open the rock that closed the tomb.  Our risen Savior comes to us through His Word and Supper.  His love is seen in the fellowship we share.  In His resurrection, He has become the rock upon which we can build our lives, now and for eternity!  Hope to see you in worship (8 or 10:45 a.m.) so I can hear you shout  —