An invitation to worship...
Thanksgiving Every Week
November 21, 2025
Good Day College Church,
In a week, we will participate in a distinctly American holiday. The first Thanksgiving was in the fall of 1621, celebrated with Native Americans from the Wampanoag tribe and it was a three-day celebration for the bountiful harvest of that year. It was celebrated regionally until 1863 when, in the middle of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln made it a national holiday. In his Thanksgiving Proclamation of Oct 3, 1863, President Lincoln wrote:
"I do therefore invite my fellow citizens to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our benevolent Father who dwells in the heavens. And I recommend that while offering up the thanksgivings that are justly due Him for such remarkable deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble repentance for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the intervention of the Almighty to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and union."
And so, because of this proclamation, we as a nation will take a single day out of our entire year for the express purpose of expressing thanksgiving to our "benevolent Father." It is a good thing to do.
Of course, setting aside of day for thanksgiving is what we do every week, on the first day of the week. Worship for the Christian is first of all, thanksgiving for all that God has already done for us. We don't worship to gain favor or reward. We worship to say "thank-you" for the favor already granted and the reward already promised. Indeed, all we do is in response to God's mercy and grace. Thus, worship for the Christian is gratitude. We have a day of thanksgiving every week!
This Sunday, in light of the national holiday, we will be expressing our thanksgiving to the Lord in a special way. As we do every year on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, we will receive a special offering for world missions. An offering for missions is particularly appropriate as we share our blessings with other peoples who are less fortunate than we are.
So this Sunday, let us do what we do every Sunday.
Let us enter His gates with thanksgiving
and His courts with praise;
Let us give thanks to Him and praise His Name.
For the Lord is good and his love endures forever.
(Psalm 100)
Pastor Mark
Good Day College Church,
In a week, we will participate in a distinctly American holiday. The first Thanksgiving was in the fall of 1621, celebrated with Native Americans from the Wampanoag tribe and it was a three-day celebration for the bountiful harvest of that year. It was celebrated regionally until 1863 when, in the middle of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln made it a national holiday. In his Thanksgiving Proclamation of Oct 3, 1863, President Lincoln wrote:
"I do therefore invite my fellow citizens to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our benevolent Father who dwells in the heavens. And I recommend that while offering up the thanksgivings that are justly due Him for such remarkable deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble repentance for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the intervention of the Almighty to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and union."
And so, because of this proclamation, we as a nation will take a single day out of our entire year for the express purpose of expressing thanksgiving to our "benevolent Father." It is a good thing to do.
Of course, setting aside of day for thanksgiving is what we do every week, on the first day of the week. Worship for the Christian is first of all, thanksgiving for all that God has already done for us. We don't worship to gain favor or reward. We worship to say "thank-you" for the favor already granted and the reward already promised. Indeed, all we do is in response to God's mercy and grace. Thus, worship for the Christian is gratitude. We have a day of thanksgiving every week!
This Sunday, in light of the national holiday, we will be expressing our thanksgiving to the Lord in a special way. As we do every year on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, we will receive a special offering for world missions. An offering for missions is particularly appropriate as we share our blessings with other peoples who are less fortunate than we are.
So this Sunday, let us do what we do every Sunday.
Let us enter His gates with thanksgiving
and His courts with praise;
Let us give thanks to Him and praise His Name.
For the Lord is good and his love endures forever.
(Psalm 100)
Pastor Mark