Your holiday plans have probably been in place for a long time. You’re anticipating a special day with loved ones. Thanksgiving is one of America’s favorite holidays. And you expect this one to be the best you’ve ever known.

But, if you aren’t careful, it will be a day of everything except giving thanks. Activities that have attached themselves to the tradition of Thanksgiving often crowd out the real purpose of this holiday. The purpose is THANKS- GIVING.

So, take time to be thankful.

Thank God for another day to live. Our breath is in His hands. I wonder how many times He has spared your life during the past year. We live in a hostile world of disease and violence. Accidents could have claimed our lives. Yet, here we are. Alive. Thank God.

Thank God for friends and family. How important it is to love and to be loved! Look about you! Give thanks for that wife, or husband, and those children. Lift your heart to Him in thanksgiving for friends who care for you and would stand with you in need.

Thank God for opportunities to serve Him. While multitudes plod through life storing up things on this perishing planet, the Christian knows the blessing of laying up treasures in heaven. Every day brings opportunities for eternal investment.

Thank God for His love. Out of His love His blessings flow. “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (I John 4:10).

Thank God.