Give Thanks to the Lord!

O give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; For His lovingkindness is everlasting! (1 Chron. 16:34)

This Thanksgiving week, our hearts overflow with gratitude to the Lord for all of His many blessings to us. His goodness and mercy truly have followed us all the days of our lives and we thank Him every day for His incredible gifts of love to us. Among those gifts is you, and, like Paul, we always thank God on every remembrance of you - for your heart that yearns after knowing God and for your faithfulness in sharing this ministry with us.

We pray that you will always be filled with joy, peace, love, and gratitude, and especially during this week that is set aside to express our thanks to the Lord.

As we celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday, I want to remind you of the true story of why our nation celebrates this important day. The article below was compiled by Nate Krupp. Dr. Nate Krupp is a friend and Bible scholar. Click here to learn about his books which he has made available through Communion With God Ministries.

The Thanksgiving Story

The Pilgrims were a godly people who left the Church of England to start something they considered more simple and more biblical. They left Plymouth, England, on August 5, 1620, on the Mayflower ship enroute to an English colony in today’s Virginia in search of religious and political freedom. They were blown off course to today’s Cape Cod Bay on the East Coast of Massachusetts. Before disembarking on November 21 they drew up the Mayflower Compact, which was the first time in history that free and equal men voluntarily in writing covenanted with GOD and each other to create their own civil government.

Key excerpt from the Mayflower Compact

“Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic...”.

On shore they discovered twenty acres that was already cleared and ready for planting!  In March an Indian chief, Samoset, appeared and greeted them in English. He explained that the land had been cleared by a warring tribe, the Patuxets, before they had all died from a mysterious plague four years earlier.  He returned a week later with Squanto, who had lived in Spain and England for nine years, where he had learned English, and had just returned from England six months earlier.  He stayed with the Pilgrims and taught them how to fish, hunt, plant, etc., and greatly increased their chances of survival. Samoset and Squanto introduced the Pilgrims to Massasoit, the chief who controlled the entire area and with whom a peace treaty was arranged.  In October the Pilgrims invited the Indians for a time of celebration and thanksgiving to GOD, which lasted three days.

In 1789 President George Washington proclaimed November 26 as a day of national thanksgiving.  President Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November, 1863, as “a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father.”  In 1941 Congress ruled that the fourth Thursday of November would be observed as Thanksgiving Day.

Who is Nate Krupp?

Nate Krupp has written 25 books on biblical themes. From 1995 to 2013 he and Joanne were professors with Christian Leadership University teaching courses based on their writings in the areas of Bible study, evangelism, and the Church. He has had a preaching-teaching-writing ministry that has taken him to many nations on every continent. They live in Salem, Oregon.