The calendar has flipped and time has marched on from the late-year holiday that we know as Thanksgiving. Around that time we will often pause to recall people and events for which we are thankful. Do we need some special day to prompt us to give thanks for special people in our lives?

When Paul (and two brothers in Christ) wrote their first letter to the Christians in Thessalonica, they expressed their thanks (a daily thanks) quite freely.

Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace. We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. (I Thessalonians 1:1-3)

“We always give thanks …… constantly remembering you before God…”

What a wonderful sentiment from Christians to their fellow Christians. Paul and his companions found themselves regularly giving thanks to God for their partners in spreading the good news of what God had done for them in Jesus Christ.

“We thank God for you, and remember constantly before God your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.”

If we are looking for an occasion and an object for our thankfulness, what about turning to our Christian friends in our church, and the ministry that we share? There is a new pictorial directory being made in our church, hopefully your picture will be included. And for right now, what would happen in our own prayer life if we would pick up the most recently compiled church directory and use it as an opportunity for thanking God for our friends at First Pres?

“I thank God for you – and for you – and for you.”

Prayer

Thank You God for surrounding me with the works of faith and labors of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ that I find in my fellow Christian disciples in Your church. Help me to walk thankfully with them today, on the path of our Lord Jesus, in whose name I pray. Amen.