Thanksgiving is not just a holiday.

It is a way of life.

As we study the scriptures with Scott Pauley today,

we pray that God will help us learn how to develop grateful hearts and hopes.

I was trying desperately to explain to a young man on an airplane years ago about my faith,

about the Lord Jesus, about the truth of salvation, and frankly, I was

getting nowhere. Oh, he was asking questions and he was giving his arguments and he was debating.

And he said to me, I don't even know that there is a God. And of course, I tried to explain

as we looked out the airplane window about

creation and about the Bible and all of that. And finally, I said to him something just from my heart,

almost out of frustration. I came to the end of my debates and I said to him, well, let me give you

the greatest thing I could tell you. I know there's a God.

He said, how do you know there's a God? And I said, I know there's a God because he's changed my life

and I've talked to him today. And he's talked to me today. And he's making a difference in my life every day.

And at that moment, for the first time in the conversation, my young friend had nothing to say. Why?

Because when you begin to share the change that Jesus Christ has brought in your own heart and life,

that very thing that I used last, I should have used first. When you bring people to the change that Christ has made in your life,

you're bringing them to the essence of the gospel. The Bible says in Psalm 107, verse 2,

let the redeemed of the Lord say so. And we've learned that we must begin first of all by saying

that we were lost, identifying with them, explaining to them, we're all lost, we're all sinners.

Even church people are lost without Jesus.

No church saves a man, Christ saves a man.

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