Good morning, Happy Souls!

Bill Keller wrote a wonderful devotional today
that I highly recommend to you.  He has given
me permission to copy his e-mails, and I'm sure
he would be happy if you would share this with
people you know as well.

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DAILY DEVOTIONAL     THURSDAY  NOVEMBER 24, 2005
( 1 Thessalonians 5:18 )


On this day we celebrate as Thanksgiving, we have
so much to be thankful for.  I want to point out
an aspect of this great verse in Paul's letter to
the church at Thessalonica that is usually
overlooked and almost never preached on.  While we
are so thankful today for all of God's blessings,
this verse requires a great amount of maturity
because it says give thanks in ALL things.  How
quickly we run over those words without ever
thinking about the true meaning.  In this society
where we are so focused on winning, so focused on
the positive, so focused on things being in a
state of perfection....God tries His best to help
us be realistic about this sinful world we live in.

Aside from our own sinfulness, we live in a world
that is infested with sin in every nook and cranny
of our existence.  Jesus, trying to prepare His
disciples for the reality of living in this world
without Him, trying to make them understand that
despite the close intimate relationship they had,
told them that in this world they would have
problems and things would not always be perfect. 
This verse tell us that every day we should give
thanks in "all" things.

Spiritual maturity comes in when you understand that
this verse is actually telling you to give thanks
not only for those things you look at as good, but
also the bad things that happen to you as well. 
That is hard for us to understand why we should be
thankful for those terrible things that happen to
us along life's journey, but we have no way of
knowing the mind of God, we have no way of
understanding completely His plan or purpose, we
just can't comprehend all of the things God does in
the situations we live through.  It is hard to
imagine giving thanks for things like marriage
problems, divorce, the death of a loved one,
financial difficulties, health problems, strife with
friends, problems in your local fellowship,
difficulties on the job, and any other bad things
we experience in life.  Hard to imagine.

But when you realize that God is still on the
throne, that He is still in control, then you by
faith, have to thank Him and trust even in those
bad situations.  He is working on your behalf and
will not let you down. As painful as the experience
must be, we have to thank Him because He is often
perfecting us for work in the future.  We give
thanks out of obedience, and out of faith that God
knows what He is doing in allowing those bad things
we live through in our life to occur.

I realize that today would be a great day to just
say some warm and fuzzy things to make us feel good. 
It is a holiday, many are with family.  The Christmas
season is upon us.  We have so much to be thankful
for.  But the job God gave me was not to give you
something each day to just make you feel good, but
to challenge you to a closer daily walk and to help
you grow spiritually.  Many problems that I see
each day occur because people have been given too
much "feel good" talk, and not adequately prepared for
the reality of this life in relationship to their life
in Christ.  When the storms come, they just aren't
equipped to handle the onslaught.

The one thing that I will never do is hold back,
compromise the Word of God, or tell you something
just to make you feel good.  I will tell you the
truth, God's Truth right from the Bible, in an
attempt to help you be prepared for living a
victorious and productive life for Christ.  In
these last days, He needs bold, mature, fearless
men and women to do the work necessary here on
earth.  It is no accident that you are getting these
Devotionals, and no accident that you read them. 
God is speaking to you through these daily writing
to sharpen you, prepare you, encourage you to be
all He has called you to be.

I love you and care about you so much.  I am so
grateful for you.  Your love and prayers have been
an inspiration to me personally and to our people
here at Liveprayer.com.  We are pressing forward
each day.  Thank you again for standing with me,
for praying,  for giving, for helping us add people
to our Daily Devotional list and letting others
know about Liveprayer.com.  My thoughts and prayers
are with you this day.  I am truly thankful for
you.  For those traveling may His mercies be with
you as you go to and from your destinations.  For
those of you going through the fire today,
remember...give thanks in ALL things!!!

In His love and service,
Your friend and brother in Christ,
Bill Keller

***If I can help you in any way you can contact me
through my personal email at bkeller@liveprayer.com

***ARE YOU 100% CERTAIN WHERE YOU WILL SPEND
ETERNITY?  The fact is you will die one day.  At
that moment, you will either spend eternity with
the Lord or be cast into everlasting darkness
forever separated from God your creator.  To know
for certain you will be forever with Jesus, go to:
http://www.liveprayer.com/bdy_salvatn.html

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(C) Copyright 2005, Bill Keller Ministries.
All rights reserved

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May God bless you as you learn from this message!

Donald W. Mitchell, Your Dream Concierge

Copyright 2005 Donald W. Mitchell