Thankful to God

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day and even though there are thousands of things that are going terribly wrong in our world, there are still millions of reasons to be thankful.

However, in this era of political correctness, we will see movies and TV commercials of people giving thanks for family, friends and food, but no one will mention to whom they are directing all of this gratitude.

It really doesn't make sense to talk about how thankful you are if you don’t talk about the object of your gratitude. You don’t just throw these kinds of words into the air.

If someone opens a door for you and allows you to walk into a building first, you don’t just say I’m thankful for that. You say, “Thank you!” to the person who performed the kind deed. Yet, we live in a time of so much pressure against a Biblical Christian world-view that we now sit back and receive this ridicules notion of being thankful (to nothing or no one in particular) for our good fortune and blessings.

We can sing ‘God Bless America’ at sporting events, but we can’t simply say, "I thank God for blessing me to have a family, a place to sleep, and breath in my body." Why bother to sing God Bless America if it’s politically incorrect and offensive to thank God when He blesses us? It’s crazy, isn’t it?

So make no mistake about it, the Urban Life Church family gives thanks to God. We will do it, not only tomorrow as we gather with our families and friends, but every day as we live our lives to the praise of His glory.

1 Chronicles 16:8
Oh, give thanks to the LORD! Call upon His name; Make known His deeds among the peoples!

Psalm 18:49
Therefore I will give thanks to You, O LORD, among the Gentiles, And sing praises to Your name.

Psalm 30:4
Sing praise to the LORD, you saints of His, And give thanks at the remembrance of His holy name.

Psalm 35:18
I will give You thanks in the great assembly; I will praise You among many people.

Psalm 75:1
We give thanks to You, O God, we give thanks! For Your wondrous works declare that Your name is near.

Psalm 92:1
It is good to give thanks to the LORD, And to sing praises to Your name, O Most High;

Psalm 105:1
Oh, give thanks to the LORD! Call upon His name; Make known His deeds among the peoples!

Psalm 106:1
Praise the LORD! Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.

Psalm 140:13
Surely the righteous shall give thanks to Your name; The upright shall dwell in Your presence.

1 Thessalonians 5:18
…in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.



May you have a Blessed Thanksgiving Holiday!

Be Still and Know That I Am God

You never know what’s up ahead of you on the road of life; especially when the Lord sends exhortations like what He’s been giving us. Over the past couple of weeks we’ve been teaching from the topic Assured and Secured in Your Relationship with God.

We began with a couple of weeks of teaching, followed by a couple weeks of answering questions. We even talked about following the leading of the Holy Spirit in moments of crisis.

This past Saturday night, we received a phone call from our nephew, that grandpa (Carol’s dad) had been hospitalized and wasn’t doing well. We learned he had actually been in the hospital all week. Not realizing just how serious his condition was, we decided that we would go see him the next day, immediately after our Sunday Gathering.

During the night we could feel a great stirring in our hearts. Even as we prepared for our weekly time of worship and teaching, we knew that the meeting was not going to go according to any planned agenda. From the start, the Holy Spirit moved upon us in travailing prayer after we sang the song, I Just Know We Win.
The opening lyrics of that tune declare,

I just know when life goes wrong to give a sacrifice of praise.
I just know when I’m in a storm to give a sacrifice of praise.
I just know when I’m in a mess to give a sacrifice of praise.
I just know in strife and stress to give a sacrifice of praise.

The Spirit of God led us to Psalm 61:1-4 which reads: “Hear my cry, O God; Attend to my prayer. From the end of the earth I will cry to You, When my heart is overwhelmed; lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For You have been a shelter for me, a strong tower from the enemy. I will abide in Your tabernacle forever; I will trust in the shelter of Your wings.”

The Spirit of God moved upon one sister and she began to sing as the Lord gave her a prophetic word for the church family in the form of a song. Part of the song came from Psalm 46:10, “Be still, and know that I am God!”

Afterwards, I shared briefly with everyone about Carol’s father and told them of our plans to go to the hospital immediately afterwards. However, I asked all the women to pray. So the wonderful women of our church family gathered around my wife and prayed for her. They uttered profound, faith-filled, powerful prayers that flowed in agreement with what the Holy Spirit was speaking.

The Lord impressed Carol’s mother, to have us to sing a song called You Are Here. Part of those lyrics:

You are here in our midst. How we’ve waited for moments like this.
Have your way in this place; Holy Spirit come do as you wish.
We are changed as you move in our midst.

There was such a gentle and sweeping move of the Lord as we wept in His presence.

In closing, the Lord gave me a word of encouragement taken from the Bible passage where Joseph spoke to his brothers in Genesis 50:20, “But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.”

As we prepared to leave for the day, Carol received a call from her nephew to let us know that her dad had passed away. From the time that he indicated that he passed on, it was at the same time the women were praying for her.

As I hugged my stunned and disappointed wife, I heard the Words the Lord had just given us during the meeting, “Be still and know that I am God.” Carol's mom expressed that she was thankful that even though they had separated and divorced many years ago, she could honestly say that there was no bitterness in her heart towards her ex-husband and father of her children. Even though saddened by the news, she had indeed been healed by the power of forgiveness.

We cannot explain why it happened this way. We desperately wanted to see my father in law one more time. We wanted to go to the hospital in the glory of that service and pray for Him. But we bow humbly to the sovereign Lord of our lives.

These are the times that we realize why we must be assured and secure in our relationship with God. These are the times you find out if you truly have a solid relationship with Him. These are the times that give legitimacy to the strategy and emphasis of this ministry.

Many of us are in the grieving process in this church. Over the past couple of years we have seen loss at many levels ranging from divorce to death. This year alone we have seen some extremely painful and tragic deaths amongst our family and friends.

And yes, even though we give praise to God in spite of the loss, we still have a healing process to go through. That’s why we don’t preach sermons to condemn people who are going through their healing process. They are fighting through all kinds of mental and emotional trauma. Sometimes they respond in sinful, ungodly ways in their grief. But that’s why we are allowing that unique anointing that was upon Jesus to come through us to minister to one another.

I want to show you something from Isaiah 61. Look at verse one and verse three. I want you to combine those two verses as if though it was one sentence. We’re not doing injustice to the Word of the Lord by doing this because of the grammatical structure of the sentences.

Isaiah 61: 1 and 3 says, “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, Because the LORD has anointed Me to console those who mourn (grieve) in Zion, To give them beauty for ashes, The oil of joy for mourning, The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; That they may be called trees of righteousness, The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.”

Jesus was anointed to console those in Zion who are still in their grieving process. Console means to remove the sense of loss. That’s more than just embracing someone to comfort them. This anointing removes the sense of the loss that causes the pain in our grief. That anointing is on this ministry for you and your family! That anointing is present to give you beauty (a crown of distinction); to give you the oil of joy; and to give you a garment of praise!

So even as my wife, my sons, and our family are going through this loss, just like most of you have experienced this year, we all can now receive the consoling, healing touch of Jesus in this moment. As we always tell you, we’re all on this journey together.

When we get together again this Sunday, let’s not make it a solemn occasion. Let’s make it a praise celebration because what was meant for evil, God is turning it for our good. We choose to be still and know that He is God!

Chris Green