O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: his  mercy endureth for ever.  
Psalm 106:1

As an adult and after giving my life to Christ, I developed a different reason for loving this holiday. Thanksgiving became a day of giving thanks to God for all the blessing He has bestowed upon me, my family and our country.  

In this era of overblown political correctness, we often hear tales of Thanksgiving that stray far afield from the truth. Contemporary textbook narratives of the first American harvest celebration portray the Pilgrim colonists as having given thanks to their Indian neighbors for teaching them how to survive in a strange new world. This, of course, is in stark contrast to the historical record, in which the colonists gave thanks to God Almighty, the Provider of their blessings.

The “First Thanksgiving” is usually depicted as the Pilgrims’ three-day feast in early November 1621. The Pilgrims, Calvinist Protestants who rejected the institutional Church of England, believed that the worship of God must originate freely in the individual soul, under no coercion. The Pilgrims left Plymouth, England, on 6 September 1620, sailing to the New World on the promise of opportunity for religious and civil liberty.

For almost three months, 102 seafarers braved the brutal elements, arriving off what is now the Massachusetts coast. On 11 December, before disembarking at Plymouth Rock, the voyagers signed the Mayflower Compact (http://PatriotPost.US/histdocs/mc.htm), America’s original document of civil government predicated on principles of self-government. While still anchored at Provincetown harbor, Pastor John Robinson counseled, “You are become a body politic... and are to have only them for your... governors which yourselves shall make choice of.” Governor William Bradford described the Mayflower Compact as “a combination... that when they came a shore they would use their owne libertie; for none had power to command them...”

Upon landing, the Pilgrims conducted a prayer service and quickly turned to building shelters. Malnutrition and illness during the ensuing New England winter killed nearly half their number. Through prayer and hard work, with the assistance of their Wampanoag Indian friends, the Pilgrims reaped a rich harvest in the summer of 1621, the bounty of which they shared with the Wampanoag. The celebration incorporated feasting and games, which remain holiday traditions.

Such ready abundance soon waned, however. Under demands from investors funding their endeavor, the Pilgrims had acquiesced to a disastrous arrangement holding all crops and property in common, in order to return an agreed-to half of their produce to their overseas backers. (These financiers insisted they could not trust faraway freeholders to split the colony’s profits honestly.) Within two years, Plymouth was in danger of foundering under famine, blight and drought. Colonist Edward Winslow wrote, “The most courageous were now discouraged, because God, which hitherto had been our only shield and supporter, now seemed in his anger to arm himself against us.”

Governor Bradford’s record of the history of the colony describes 1623 as a period of arduous work coupled with “a great drought... without any rain and with great heat for the most part,” lasting from spring until midsummer. The Plymouth settlers followed the Wampanoag’s recommended cultivation practices carefully, but their crops withered.

The Pilgrims soon thereafter thought better of relying solely on the physical realm, setting “a solemn day of humiliation, to seek the Lord by humble and fervent prayer, in this great distress.” In affirmation of their faith and providing a great witness to the Indians, by evening of that day the skies became overcast and gentle rains fell, restoring the yield of the fields. Governor Bradford noted, “And afterwards the Lord sent to them such seasonable showers, with interchange of fair warm weather as, through His blessing caused a fruitful and liberal harvest, to their no small comfort and rejoicing. For which mercy, in time convenient, they also set apart a day of thanksgiving.”

Winslow noted the Pilgrims’ reaction as believing “it would be great ingratitude, if secretly we should smother up the same, or content ourselves with private thanksgiving for that, which by private prayer could not be obtained. And therefore another solemn day was set apart and appointed for that end; wherein we returned glory, honor, and praise, with all thankfulness, to our good God, which dealt so graciously with us...” This was the original American Thanksgiving Day, centered not on harvest feasting (as in 1621) but on gathering together to publicly recognize the favor and provision of Almighty God.

Bradford’s diary recounts how the colonists repented of their financial folly under sway of their financiers: “At length, after much debate of things, the Governor (with the advice of the chiefest amongst them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves; in all other things to go in the general way as before. And so assigned to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number.”

By the mid-17th century, autumnal Thanksgivings were common throughout New England; observance of Thanksgiving Festivals spread to other colonies during the American Revolution. At other junctures of “great distress” or miraculous intervention, colonial leaders called their countrymen to offer prayerful thanks to God. The Continental Congresses, cognizant of the need for a warring country’s continuing grateful entreaties to God, proclaimed yearly Thanksgiving days during the Revolutionary War, from 1777 to 1783.

In 1789, after adopting the Bill of Rights, among the first official acts of Congress was approving a motion for proclamation of a national day of thanksgiving, recommending that citizens gather together and give thanks to God for their new nation’s blessings. Presidents George Washington, John Adams and James Madison followed the custom of declaring national days of thanks, though it was not officially declared again until another moment of national peril, when during the War Between the States Abraham Lincoln invited “the whole American people” to observe “a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father... with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience.” In 1941, Congress set permanently November’s fourth Thursday as our official national Thanksgiving.

The Pilgrims’ temporary folly of sundering and somersaulting the material as transcendent over the spiritual conveys an important lesson that modern histories are reluctant to tell. The Founders, recognizing this, placed first among constitutionally recognized rights the free exercise of religion—faith through action.

If what we seek is a continuance of God s manifold blessings, then a day of heartfelt thanksgiving is a tiny tribute indeed.

This Thanksgiving, please pray for our Patriot Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families—especially the families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen who have died in defense of American liberty.

Juanita Bynum

Randy & Paula White

Richard & Lindsay Roberts

The Charismatic 6 (Creflo Dollar, Kenneth Copland, Benny Hinn, Joyce Myers, Eddie Long, Paula & Randy White)

—Bill Keller, Founder & Host of LivePrayer

As a follower of Christ, a servant of the most high Lord, all we have is His message.  NOTHING ELSE!  Despite the illusion so many high profile men and women of God are under, especially those who are on TV, they are not celebrities, they are not stars, and this is not Hollywood!  We are nothing more than spokespeople for the Lord and despite how clever we may convince ourselves into thinking we are, we only have one message that matters, THE GOSPEL!  All the rest is wood, hay, and stubble!  If we are doing what we do for ANY other reason than to serve the Lord, if we have any other message but the Gospel, than we have totally failed God!

Wow! The rest of Bill's devotional can be read by clicking here.

Like Bill

If I could Be Like Bill 

Like Bill

Oh, if I could Be Like Bill

(Sung to the tune of Michael Jordan's "I Like Mike" gatorade commercials)

"When thus it shall be in the midst of the land among the people, there shall be as the shaking of an olive tree, and as the gleaning grapes when the vintage is done."                                             -- Isaiah 24:13 (King James Version)

It has been a tough week for evangelicals. First Juanita Bynum is brutally asaulted by her husband Bishop Weeks (more to follow on this one). Then  Bill Keller's Live Prayer program gets booted off the air by a Tampa TV station. Next Randy and Paula White, founding pastors of Without Walls International Church in Tampa, announce they're getting divorced. Finally, on Sunday, it was announced at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale that its pastor for nearly 50 years, the Rev. D. James Kennedy, is officially retiring.

Is God doing a great shaking or what?

I don't know about you but I'm already tired of 2008 Presidential campaign. It's still a year and half away from now. I think part of this feeling stems from my belief that Conservative Christians were fooled into voting for Bush, not once by twice.

I can recall top Conservative Christian Leaders like, Dr. James Dobson, Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell strongly encouraging Christians to vote for George W. Bush.

I read numerous opinion pieces from those on the so-call Religious Right telling us how it was our duty to vote and in many cases how we should vote.

Now, with another election around the bend, I'd like to say to all those folks I've mentioned above, "Fool me once shame on you! But fool me twice, shame on me!"  I'm not buying it this time around. If, after my prayer before God, I don't believer there is a conservative candidate running in the race, I won't vote.

Harry Potter Hoopla
Is there any wonder who's captivating the world?

English Author J.K. Rowling, of the famed Harry Potter series, posted staggering numbers in book sales with the release of her latest record-breaker book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. At last take, it's said that the Potter series has sold a staggering 340 million copies. Now compare that to the number of Bibles sold (250 million copies) over that same time period. Says a lot about who we are as a people, does it not? It's all about the manna baby!

Do you recall how Rowling says she got the idea for Harry Potter?  I'll quote her directly. She says," I was traveling back to London on my own on a crowded train, that the idea for Harry Potter simply fell into my head."

Now here's a "hmmm?" moment.  Any Christian worth his or her own salt knows that the adversary is the prince of power (or ruler) of the air.  (Ephesians 2:2) And as such, he tirelessly works to supplant God and faith in His word. He does this by planting evil thoughts and temptations in weak human minds. No? Read The Screwtape Letters by another English author, C. S. Lewis.  So, I'm not saying, but I wonder where or who Ms. Rowling's idea really came from?

Faith and Fathers
So tell me something new already.

American family scholars Loren Marks and David Dollahite, of the School of Human Ecology at Louisiana State University, recently published the results of their scientific study of the family. According to professor Marks, "Research, ours and that of the past, indicates that religious involvement tends to have a positive influence on father-child relationships."

No kidding!

Marks goes on to say, "married couples who are actively involved in the same faith tend to have stronger, happier marriages and this impacts father-child relationships in a positive way."

Whoa! What a revelation! I could have told you all this without the expense of time and money used in this study.  Just read the Word of God.