Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury; for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood. Mark 12:43-44
RECOMMENDED SCRIPTURE READING DEUTERONOMY 16:13-17 – “13 “You shall observe the Feast of Tabernacles seven days, when you have gathered from your threshing floor and from your winepress. 14 And you shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant and the Levite, the stranger and the fatherless and the widow, who are within your gates. 15 Seven days you shall keep a sacred feast to the Lord your God in the place which the Lord chooses, because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you surely rejoice.16 “Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord your God in the place which He chooses: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Tabernacles; and they shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed. 17 Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the Lord your God which He has given you.”
COMMENTS: I am writing this on Thanksgiving morning (November 28,2019). Thanksgiving is observed in USA every year on the 4th Thursday of November. Pilgrims migrated from England seeking escape from religious persecution and seeking freedom to worship. They were devout Christians who devoted themselves to living lives as close to Christ-like as possible. They suffered disease on trip from Holland (a stop-over on escape from England) that took a large number of them. They landed at Plymouth Rock but were unprepared for the winter. Exposure and disease continued to ravage their numbers, By spring 102 that left England had shrunk to 52. With the help of native Indians, they were able to plant a good crop and the next fall celebrated a good harvest. They observed a Thanksgiving time of celebration (3 days) of feasting and playing games and worshipping and praising God. Their celebration included their Indian neighbors too. That celebration has become an annual holiday and celebration and tradition in USA and in a few other countries at various times and dates.
Today I will be celebrating with our daughter’s family, Arlene’s cousin, and a life long friend of our children and his son (Jamie and Davey McFadden) who migrated back from Ukraine a few months ago.
Gratitude is a vital part of worship and fellowship with God. It is vital to experience joy and peace and to enjoy life each day too. Gratitude helps us commune with God and notice and appreciate all He does each day for each of us. Gratitude is also a healthy response to encourage others who also help and bless us. Gratitude helps us notice and realize we are not alone nor need to face life’s challenges and dangers and problems alone either. Gratitude helps us read and receive God’s Word with new insights and encouragement and council too.
Our society is becoming less grateful and kind while developing a mindset of “entitlement”. A mindset of being entitled to a good – comfortable life with everything we need and want provided without regard to sacrifice of others to provide it.
An entitlement attitude closes us to a healthy relationship with God and with a lot of good people God wants us to connect with. We miss out on so much with such an attitude and also miss out on enjoyment of being a blessing and sharing with others.
But an attitude of gratitude does exactly the opposite. Gratitude opens us to a real – meaningful – enjoyable – helpful relationship with God and His Word. Gratitude opens us to loving relationship with others and to opportunities to receive and give help and encouragement to others and each other.
Luke 6:38 “38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Being generous and kind to others brings even greater blessing back. It is common for God to provide more back to us than what we give but not necessarily immediately nor in kind. But the value of what we receive back is always far more precious than what we gave and timing of receipt back is always perfect. I can testify to that and encourage you to reflect today to confirm that to be true for you too.
The amount of our gifts is not what God values but the motive and condition of our soul when we give. During bible times and during Jesus’ time on earth, people were putting offerings in the temple treasury containers. The wealthy were putting in large gifts out of their wealth—that is, gifts that required no sacrifice. However, when a poor widow came up and deposited two tiny coins (her whole livelihood); Jesus commended the poor widow for her generosity and sacrifice, while declining to commend the wealthy in the same way. The wealthy gave more money, but the widow gave more heart. He expects much from those He gave much. What is the much you have received from God. For the widow that much was faith. For the wealthy man it was material possessions. The wealthy man would have received a gift back far more precious than money if he had given and done – followed the path gratitude would lead Him instead of the dead-end path “entitlement” was leading Him on.
Research has shown that, in America, people in the bottom twenty percent of income brackets give a higher percentage of their income to charity than those who are in the highest twenty percent of income brackets. The wealthier may give larger amounts of money, but the lower earners give a higher percentage. Jesus noticed the difference between amount and percentage one day at the temple—and pointed out which was more commendable.
Let your gifts to God and others reflect an attitude of gratitude for all He has given you.
The essence of Christian ethics is gratitude.
R. C. Sproul
If you wish, you can access my blog at “https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com“. There you will find 516 blog posts I have made plus a link to my devotional journal material archives from 2013 to present.
You may also access my Facebook page and request to be my friend and automatically receive my daily journal publications daily. My Facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/Dondevotionals/ Many thanks to a pastor and dear brother in Christ in Nepal who set up the above Facebook page to help and encourage and give opportunity for more to explore and use my devotional blog materials.
My hope and prayer are, my blog and devotional materials will become a source of encouragement and tools in ministry for you.
Published by donsdevotions
Don McDaniel - Who am I?
Hello everyone and welcome to my devotional journal blog. In order to get acquainted and help you get to know me a bit better before considering following my blog, let me give you some background. I am a 74-year-old male and a retired engineer. I worked for a major supplier of underground mining equipment for nearly 40 years before retiring in 2012. Arlene and I have been happily married since April 1978 and have two grown – married children, one granddaughter and 2 step grandsons. I joined the local United Methodist church at age 12 after accepting Christ as my Savior at age 10 during revival services in that same church in 1961, so I have been a “Born Again” Christian all my teen years and adult life. Christ has helped and guided me all that time. He guided me in choosing my wife and life’s career. My life journey has included regrets and failures, but God has picked me up and protected and spared me from life threatening consequences and dangers more times than I can recall or count. But many I do recall and encourage and motivate me to trust and follow Christ with more passion than ever.
Christmas 2011 our daughter gave Arlene and I each a devotional journal. Journals were books with devotion for each day and space to give personal impressions and thoughts related to each devotion. Her desire was to have a lasting legacy she could refer back to and share with her children and grandchildren especially after we are gone. I was touched by that gesture. My parents and Arlene’s were devout Christians, so we would have greatly treasured having that from them, so we felt a sense of urgency to honor her request. I finished my journal first and returned it to our daughter the following Christmas. I’m glad I did it then because Parkinson’s has caused my hand writing to deteriorate since then. The exercise was such a blessing for me. Discipline of keeping journal helped me gain a deeper walk with Christ and greater discipline in honoring my time of prayer and devotion with Him each day. So, I decided to continue the practice but since I could not find a paper journal I liked, I decided to create my own. I had already been receiving electronic devotions by email every day from several sources, my favorite being “Turning Point” from Dr. David Jeremiah. What I decided to do was to include devotional scripture but add my own thoughts and comments only so there would be no issue of copyright infringement. Creating and maintaining journal by computer also addressed my deteriorating handwriting ability. I started an electronic devotion journal January 1, 2013 and have been faithful to that practice every day since. I prayed about method and level of distribution. My initial intent was to only share it with my two children by email, but quickly discovered others in my family, my church, and friends from work (both retired and still working) who knew me and wanted to be included in distribution when they learned what I was doing. I now distribute by email my daily journal at the beginning of each month to over 150 friends and relatives. God has richly blessed and encouraged me.
I am concerned with the state of our church and nation, and world for that matter, believing we are living in the end times the prophets of old and Christ have talked about in scripture, so time is short. I desire to be true to my Savior and a witness to help others come to a saving knowledge of Him and equipped to share His Good News too. If my journal can encourage and help others, I believe God wants me to share it. I struggled, for a time at first, because I know many others keep similar journals but only for their own edification and do not want to share them because they are private.
However, Christ has stirred my heart to share it as a witness tool.
Our son and daughter have a long-time friend who grew up with them who we also befriended nearly 25 years ago. He had a lot of family problems, so would gravitate to our family as a refuge and eventually thought of us as his adopted parents and he as our adopted son. We lost contact with him for some time when he grew up and left home. He traveled around the U.S. and eventually ended up in Ukraine where he resided for next 10 years. He had to return to the US to renew his visa and took opportunity to recommend I begin a blog of my devotions and helped me set it up. He is also an active blogger and has been an email subscriber to my journal for several months, so he has been suggesting I expand my distribution by starting a blog to get broader exposure. After reflection and prayer, I concluded God was in this, so he is helping me set up my blog site. This brief autobiography is my first entry.
He returned to Ukraine, then resided there until circumstanced made him decide to move back to US with his young son. This biography was my first post February 29, 2016 .
I have published 600 posts from 2016-2023 automatically sent to all my Facebook friends, published on WordPress to be accessible to anyone curious or seeking a deeper walk with God. I decided to take a sebatical to prepare for a new chapter. In 2014 I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease which affects patient ability to walk, drive, do physical work, and eventually talk. By mid 2023 it became evident our home for last 42 years (previously owned by my parents for previous 44 years and by my mother's grandparents for 39 years before that) would eventually not meet my needs so we decided to sell it and move into 1st floor of a duplex we also owned that was the town school from 1855-1913. Likewise, the property was requiring more maintenance that I was no longer able to keep up with. 2023 involved selling our home and moving into apartment next door and then in early 2025 an opportunity to move closer to our daughter and granddaughter in Kentucky which was completed in May 2025. For a number of months I have been seeking direction seeking God's direction and timing to return to blogging as my journey with Parkinson's continues to unfold with God's guiding hand in mine.
I hope and pray my devotions will continue to be a blessing for you. God certainly has become closer and more real to me since started this blog in 2016. I have spent time with Him studying scripture and praying and listening and writing this journal. I will continue seeking God’s help and will welcome your input to make this site as meaningful as I can and true to God, who is motivating me to create and maintain it. I will also welcome input in order to make format more meaningful going forward.
Don & Arlene McDaniel
In His Service,
Email: mcdanieldonald769@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Don1951
If you wish, you can access my blog at “https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com“. There you will find 600+ blog posts I have made plus a link to my devotional journal material archives from 2013 to present (https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com/2016/03/02/link-to-dons-devotional-journal-entries-2013/ )
You may also access my Facebook page and request to be my friend and automatically receive my daily journal publications daily. My Facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/Dondevotionals/ Many thanks to a pastor and dear brother in Christ in Nepal who set up the above Facebook page to help and encourage and give opportunity for more to explore and use my devotional blog materials. View all posts by donsdevotions
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