SERMON NOTES:

Prayer Requests Y Pray for Joanne Shingledeckers daughter, Ann Brodersen, as she goes through testing at the University of Minnesota for pain and complications with Pancreas. Y Pray for Devin Vosdingh as she goes through extensive dental work. Y Pray for Erika Dochniak as she struggles with diabetes. Y Thank you for the cards and healing prayers for Gloria Ivers broken ankle. Y Pray for a seven year old boy named Carter Olson who is undergoing chemotherapy for brain cancer. Molecular tests show that he has an aggressive form of cancer which places him in a high-risk category. Y Pray for Rebecca Kleins family as they go through divorce.

Y Pray for Dwight Zvorak as he recovers from the disease of alcoholism. Y Pray for persons and process involved in property purchase for COL.

DEVOTION
All of us have been taught at an early age the importance of giving thanks. Giving thanks is not a new idea or a new concept. We know of its importance for our own lives. We even formally celebrate thanks each year on the holiday of Thanksgiving. However we can turn thanks into a duty and not an attitude of our heart. When this happens we lose the power of giving thanks. Being thankful is meant to be an expression of our own hearts. When we turn thanks into a rote exercise we lose the spiritual significance off giving thanks. In the readings this week well explore the basis for our thanks, and do some exercises that can cultivate our own attitude of gratitude. Enjoy! Comments about the devotion can be emailed to pastor@colpres.org. Monday, November 21 Read Romans 5:1-11 We have many reasons to be thankful. We can feel the blessings of family, a good job, financial security, a place to live, hobbies and activities that give us meaning, our

Y Pray for Franks Grandma Warnock.

She has qualified for hospice and may pass away soon. Please pray for peace and the assurance of her salvation in the Lord. Y Pray for Angelicas friend Ann, a friend and colleague, who is receiving treatment for breast cancer. Y Pray for Carole Lloyd, a friend of Pastor Paul and Amy Moore, whose brain cancer has reappeared.

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health. Unfortunately all of these can be taken away from us. When our own thanks is dependent on an external circumstance we can find ourselves in misery. The basis of our thanks is our faith. In this passage to the Romans Paul wrote about the love of God that is poured out to us. At the right time Christ died for us. Because of this we have peace with Godaccess to grace. May our own hearts burn with love and thanks to God. In a sermon on November 13 I asked everyone to compare their love for God with the temperature of an oven. What temperature is your love for God today? The more we appreciate and give thanks for grace, the hotter is our own love. Today as you pray, meditate on the gift of grace that we have been given. Open yourself up to the understanding that because of Christ we have a relationship with a God who will always love us and care for us deeply. Our only response to this gift is our thanks. Tuesday, November 22 Read Luke 17:11-19 Imagine that you were one of the lepers who was healed. As a leper you were ostracized by the community. You most likely lived in a leper colony on the outskirts of the town. People thought you were unclean. Some regulations called for you to say the words unclean, unclean when someone approached you. You were also a Samaritan, so you were different religiously compared to many others. Jesus changed all of that for you. He told you to go to a priest and when you encountered a priest you were not afflicted with leprosy anymore. You were healed.

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The only appropriate response is thanks. As Jesus noted its puzzling that the other nine lepers didnt come back to share their thanks with Jesus. We know that giving thanks is the right thing to do. The place to start is to appreciate all that God has given to us. The leper who returned understood the gift he had been given. Today as you pray, give thanks to God for all that you have received from God. Give thanks for the healing that God offers to us. Wednesday, November 23 Read Psalm 92:1-4 The superscription for this Psalm says it is a song for the Sabbath Day. We can imagine people singing this song to God in worship on the Sabbath. This is the only Psalm of the 150 Psalms where a superscription of A Song for the Sabbath Day is written. Our worship of God is a way to express thanks. When we gather with others we offer the communitys thanks to God for all that we have received. Take some time to write out all that you are thankful for in 2011. Make a list of 10-15 events that have happened in 2011 for which you give thanks. When youve completed the list read these four verses from Psalm 92 again. Dont forget about the community Ecumenical worship service that will take place tonight at 7:00 at Our Saviors Lutheran Church in Lexington. Thursday, November 24 Read Luke 9:10-17 Happy Thanksgiving! May your day be filled with joy! May your feast and festivities be similar to what the 5,000 must have

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experienced when they were fed with a loaf and two fish. When the Pilgrims started the tradition of Thanksgiving in 1621 they were filled with joy at a good harvest. Initially they did not have enough food to feed the 102 people of their colony. The Wampanoag Native Americans had helped the Pilgrims by providing them seeds and teaching them to fish. The festival of Thanksgiving has come a long ways from that celebration in 1621. Today give thanks for all that you have. May your day be filled with a sense of gratitude for the gifts that surround you. Friday, November 25 Read Galatians 5:16-26 In this passage Paul contrasted the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit. The fruits of the Spirit that he shared in verses 22-23 come from out of our heart. The seeds of these fruits are our own thanks and gratitude. Look at the difference between the person described in the first six verses and the person described in the last four verses. We have a choice about which person we will be. The choice starts with an orientation that we take towards thanks. When we are filled with thanks with all we have its easier to be full of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. When we focus on what we lack, its easier to commit what Paul calls works of the flesh. Today as you pray, pray that you will be the person described in the last four verses. Pray that we at Chain of Lakes can design ministries that encourage the people of our new congregation to be these people. Pray that the people of the church worldwide will

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be people filled with the seeds of thanks and gratitude and people living out the fruits of the Spirit. Saturday, November 26 Read Psalm 105:1-6 At the start of this Psalm Israel shared their thanks to God. For the rest of the Psalm the writer of the Psalm recited the history of Israel. We can imagine these words being shared in a worship service. The history of the people prompted them to give thanks. We can do the same for our own lives. Take some time to reflect or even write down the five events of your life for which you give thanks. What would they be? Take some time to thoughtfully come up with this list. Then, when you have your list shower God with thanks. Let God know how deeply you appreciate each of the events. In doing this exercise you are connecting with the writer of this Psalm. You are joining hands across history with someone who gave thanks for their history.