Thanks Giving Greetings!
I hope this letter finds you busy preparing for Thanks Giving. Even if we're not cooking a huge meal and having 25 people over to admire our Martha Stewart type decor (I wish I had Martha's decor), we all need to take time out to prepare our hearts for a season of thankfulness.
I was reading a daily devotion and a new thought came to me, now this may not be new to you, but it was to me. In John 12, we are given a glimpse of another kind of a thanks-giving meal.
Six days before Passover, Jesus arrived in Bethany. Lazarus, whom Jesus had brought back to life, lived there. Dinner was prepared for Jesus in Bethany. Martha served the dinner, and Lazarus was one of the people eating with Jesus.
John 12:1-2 (GW)
"Lazarus was one of the people eating..." Wow, this is such an understatement! Only a short time before this, Lazarus was dead - three days dead and now he is eating with Jesus. I think the Passover meal would have been as routine in this culture as our holidays are today - something you just have to do, but this one would have had a special kind of thankfulness to it. One friend, who was dead, is now alive and breaking bread with the man who ordered him to "come out" of the grave. What a meal that must have been. What do you think was on Lazarus' list to be thankful for? I'm thinking - LIFE!
I am so thankful for life. The desire to live is a gift from God in fact; life is the gift, not just this mortal life, but eternal life. The Gospel of John gives us a wonderful word picture about Jesus being our bread of life - eternal life.
I can guarantee this truth: Every believer has eternal life. "I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert and died. This is the bread that comes from heaven so that whoever eats it won't die. I am the living bread that came from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever."
John 6:47-50 (GW)
As we break bread with friends and family this year, lets ponder the thought of Jesus being our bread of life, with the power to raise us up to new life, to call us out of the grave and into eternal life. What a rush to think of sitting with Jesus at the banquet table prepared for us who believe at the Wedding Supper of the Lamb.
Then the angel said to me, "Write this: 'Blessed are those who are invited to the lamb's wedding banquet.'" He also told me, "These are the true words of God."
Rev 19:9 (GW) 
