How many times do we tell our children to say, “Thank you?” For young parents with children, it may be a daily task, and the goal is to teach our children to show appreciation, respect, and gratitude for the things they receive. But how many times do we say, “Thank you?”

One man shares the story about a former teacher who taught him to appreciate the poet Tennyson. He decided to write her a little note of thanks. The following is the  letter he received back from her:

Dear Wille,

I can’t tell you how much your note meant to me.  I am in my 80s, living alone in a small room, cooking my own meals, and lonely like the last leaf of Fall lingering behind.  You might be interested to know that I taught school for 50 years, and yours is the only note of appreciation I have ever received.  Today it is a cold, blue morning, and your note has cheered me as nothing has in years.

Ingratitude, if you and I can feel let down and left out with ingratitude of the people we serve and help.  Can you imagine what the Lord feels like when we show Him little or no gratitude for what He has done for us? 

In (Luke 17:11-19), Jesus healed ten people of leprosy. Out of the ten people who were healed only one person returned to thank Jesus. What did Jesus think about that? Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner” (Lk. 17:17, 18). With this comment, Jesus was expecting the other nine to also return and give Him thanks.  

God expects us to be grateful and to express thanks to Him. The cross should compel us to give thanks to the Lord every single day of our lives for the great blessings that we received from the Lord.

This month as well as all the months of our lives let’s give thanks to the Lord and to one another for all our spiritual blessings that we have received.

By Mark T. Tonkery

If you are grateful, say so! Thanksgiving is only half said until you have done something to show your thankfulness.

     A missionary to India was traveling through a city and stopped to speak to a man beside the road. He talked with the man for a time about Jesus. Then, having to travel on, he gave him a few pages of the Bible in the man's language. The Indian read them and was thrilled to learn of Jesus.

        To show his gratitude, the man measured the footprints left by the missionary and made a pair of moccasins. He then traveled 200 miles to give them to the missionary as an expression of thanks.

    The missionary's life was enriched by the gift, but the Indian man was much more enriched because he had expressed his thanks.

    Have you ever tried to give 200 miles of thanks?

     Try it-you will be a better person because of it.

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“I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and of the faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and for all the saints, and I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ. For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.” (Philemon 4-7)  

A man was lost while driving through the country.  As he tried to read a map, he accidentally drove off the road into a ditch.  Though he wasn’t injured, his car was stuck in the mud.  So the man walked to a nearby farm to ask for help.
   “Warwick can get you out of that ditch,” said the farmer, pointing to an old mule standing in a field.  The man looked at the haggardly mule and looked at the farmer who just stood there repeating, “Yep, old Warwick can do the job.”  The man figured he had nothing to lose.  The two men and Warwick made their way back to the ditch.
   The farmer hitched the mule to the car.  With a snap of the reins, he shouted, “Pull, Fred! Pull, Jack! Pull, Ted! Pull, Warwick!”  And the mule pulled the car from the ditch with very little effort.
   The man was amazed.  He thanked the farmer, patted the mule, and asked, “Why did you call out all of those other names before you called Warwick?”
   The farmer grinned and said, “Old Warwick is just about blind.  As long as he believes he’s part of a team, he doesn’t mind pulling.”

- via The Lantern, Highway Church of Christ, Sullivan, IL  Ron Thomas serves as preacher and an elder for the congregation and you may visit their website as http://www.highwaycofc.com

During my second month of college, our professor gave us a pop quiz. I was a conscientious student and had breezed through the questions until I read the last one:

"What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?"

Surely this was some kind of joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times. She was tall, dark-haired and in her 50's, but how would I know her name?

I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Just before class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our quiz grade.

"Absolutely," said the professor. "In your careers, you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say "hello."

I've never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy. (Author Unknown)

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. (Romans 12:3)

“For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man beholding his natural face in a mirror, for he beholdeth himself, and goeth away, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But he that looketh into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and so continueth, being not a hearer that forgetteth, but a doer that worketh, this man shall be blessed in his doing” - James 1:23-25. A mirror is probably one of the most honest things there is. It doesn’t lie. Every time one looks into a mirror there is an accurate reflection of exactly what we are. About the only way to make a mirror lie is distort it. Even then, the reflection is not flattering. James says looking into the Bible one can see self in his natural face. This means bare bones, nothing doctored up. An actor can be made up to appear very different than natural, but that become hypocrisy. The word hypocrite is an old word for an actor, one who pretends to be someone else. The Bible rips away the veneer of pretense and lays bare what we are in God’s view. The Mirror of the Soul reveals the origin of the soul (Genesis 2:7). It equally tells us the great value of the soul (Matt. 16:26). The Mirror God gives us also shows us our personal defects and short comings (Gal. 5:19-21; 2 Tim. 3:1-5). Most important of all it shows us the eternal destiny of the soul (Matt. 25:46). The mirrors we use sometimes get smudged and dirty. Good housekeepers will clean them with diligence. A dirty mirror tends to blur our vision of what we actually look like. When clean, a better an accurate image is reflected. The word of God is ever clean and pure. (Psa. 12:6). It never fails to show us what the Lord thinks of us. James pictures one who, after seeing self in God’s mirror, instantly walks away and forgets what was seen. The tenses show that one takes a look (once) then instantly ignores it, and continues to avoid the mirror. The only one blessed is the honest person who sees self as God sees him, makes whatever corrections are needed, and does what God would have him do. Take a good look at yourself in the Bible. What do you see? What does God see?

Taken from the Laings, Ohio Church of Christ bulletin