{"id":5997,"date":"2017-11-23T06:00:51","date_gmt":"2017-11-23T14:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/devonline.us\/daily-e-votional\/?p=5997"},"modified":"2017-11-22T11:52:22","modified_gmt":"2017-11-22T19:52:22","slug":"choosing-thanks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/choosing-thanks\/","title":{"rendered":"CHOOSING THANKS!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>1 Thessalonians 5:16-18<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #c40000;\"><em>\u201cRejoice always, <sup>\u00a0<\/sup>pray without ceasing, <sup>\u00a0<\/sup>in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.<\/em>\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Being thankful is not, or at least it should not be, a once-a-year thing. As members of God\u2019s family we are to be thankful at all times.\u00a0 It is not our prerogative to choose when and what we will be thankful for.<\/p>\n<p>In today\u2019s Scripture, Paul admonishes the church at Thessalonica (as well as all of us) that we are to <strong><em>Be joyful always. <\/em><\/strong>\u00a0Do you frequently look as though you have been baptized in vinegar? That, my dear friend, is not being continually joyful.<\/p>\n<p>Paul\u2019s second admonition is that we are to <strong><em>Pray continually. <\/em><\/strong>Here is another embarrassing question: How is your prayer life? Are you continually speaking to the Lord in prayer? It is a discipline that we need to pursue.<\/p>\n<p>The last admonition is in line with today\u2019s topic. Here is what the Lord expects of us: <strong><em>Give thanks in all circumstances.<\/em><\/strong> Chew on that while you are munching on your sumptuous dinner.\u00a0 What if you had little or nothing to eat? Would you still give thanks? That is exactly the Lord\u2019s will in any and every circumstance.<\/p>\n<p>Have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day!<\/p>\n<p>Blessings dear hearts. May God richly bless you as you bless others by your words and actions!<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8211; &#8211; &#8211; Pastor Cecil<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 \u201cRejoice always, \u00a0pray without ceasing, \u00a0in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.\u201d Being thankful is not, or at least it should not be, a once-a-year thing. As members of God\u2019s family we are to be thankful at all times.\u00a0 It is not our [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1-thessalonians"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5997\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}