 Welcome to all my God ministries. I am your host on Reverend Anita Morris, and I am actually going to lead us in prayer and Thanksgiving. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the joy of this season of Thanksgiving. We also are concerned about the ones who don't have their loved ones who are not there, who may be childless, widow, or who are experiencing loss in grief. So we keep them in mind close to your heart, God, and we ask for God that your comfort, your love, embrace all those who are mourning and also keep us in Thanksgiving and also to support one another when one's weak, another one is strong to help build each other up during this season and to you, we give you all the glory, all the honor, and all the praise. Thank God. Amen. During this Thanksgiving season, I just want to give you some of the expressions of faith. Some of the expressions of faith in children might be different from that which are in adults. Faith care, which is this book here that I received in 2010 when I was at McAfee School of Theology way back eight years ago. Faith care ministering to all people groups through the ages of life by Daniel O. Elshire. Expressions of faith, he recalls in page 99. He said, I want to comment on children and faith in the context from conversations. It says, I spoke with the David when he was five and then four years later, I spoke with him when he was nine. He had also a brother James who was four and then at age eight. So this is the expression of faith at their age group, how people develop in different stages from an adolescent to their preteens. Okay, so this is when they were younger at age four. Okay, here is about the question. What are you doing when you pray? James answers, James answer is at age four. Well, you thank God when you pray. Another question, what else do you do when you pray? James answered, thank Jesus and God too. Okay, another question, what do you think God is like at age four? He replied, I think God is the world. Okay, and then the next question was, what else do you know about God? He helps us. The next question, what kinds of things would Jesus help you with? The little boy James answered at four years old, mold the grass. Another question presented itself when James was eight years old. Now he's four years older. What do you think that it means for you, for us today to pray at eight years old? Thank God for the things he gave us and the things he created. So just a little extra, more verbiage there. Another question, if you were to say a prayer tonight, what are some of the things you would say? So this is the things that you can ask your family members around holiday season. What do they think about faith? Who is God? You know, this will help nurture your family, nurture your faith, nurture your development practices for your family and to share each other's faith in that regards. The question asked to James at eight years old, if you were to say a prayer tonight, what are some of the things you would say? He replied, the things that are on the table that God created and some of the things in the day that I needed. What is God like at age eight? How would you describe God? He replies, God is helpful. He made our world for us and He helps people in many ways and that's all I have to say. He just cuts it short. He's not really verbal. He doesn't go into the effective side or emotional as some are, you know, Philly touchy, sensu. He's just, you know, very cut and dry. He's, God is the creator of God, so he's acknowledging that. The other question, he says, do you think God is a man or a woman? Okay. James replies at eight years old, no one can see God, so there is no telling. Isn't that a beautiful thing? The purity of our children at the same token, they still experience life and and they do acknowledge their environmental influences as well as their cultural influences as well as their faith tradition and how it points to God. Another question asked of this a young man whose name is David when he was age nine. What do you think what it means to pray? David replies, well, I think it's like a way of letting God know how we feel without just talking to him. So he's the more the effective person, meaning I want to share some of the emotions. What's going on in my heart and my soul? Another question, what would you say in prayer if it were tonight or if you were going to then? David replies, most of my prayers, I thank God for the good life I have and for not anything bad happening to me or my family and the things like that. So these young boys are getting matured like nine years old and then he goes, how would you describe God? David replies, well, I would describe God as a loving person, very loving, very kind. I think things like that. Another question, what does God look like at age nine? Well, he replies, I think he looks like practically everything. So very colorful. Question, the final question, what do you mean by that? So he's asking him to elaborate and David replies, I mean like he isn't like a man. He's like everything, a woman, a child, everything. So to say the least, Old Shire closes out in this discourse, children do express faith through words, but their verbal expressions may not be the most accurate ones. Verbal descriptions sometimes invite adults to evaluate children's faith. In terms of cognitive abilities, children do not yet have instead of the effective imaginative abilities they do possess. Children express their faith in actions and feelings and frequently these provide more accurate cues to their experiences of faith than do their verbalizations. Given these precautions, it is still possible to explore a part of James and David's experience of faith through words. Their words are not enough, however, much of who they are as believing persons is best expressed in how they feel and what they do. So continue to cultivate your family and your faith tradition and allow it to continue to develop externally and internally inside out. And I'm just going to read a minor scripture of James and then also in 2 Corinthians 9 of charity and of giving during this Thanksgiving season and holiday season when you have people to come visit you, just don't allow them to go away empty handed. Okay, so in James, the book of James chapter 2, in reason verse 15, if a brother or a sister is poor or lacks food for each day and one of you say to him or her, goodbye, keep yourself warm like scat, you know, without giving him or her the necessities for their body or for their food for nourishment, what good does that do? That's the question. So also faith, if it does not have works, these and actions of obedience to back it up by itself, it is powerless and operative and it is dead. But someone will say to you then, you have faith and I have good works. Now show me your faith apart from any good works if you can and I by my good works of obedience will show you my faith. So our faith sometimes have to provide evidence in our actions and that's what the meat of that is. Faith without works of action is dead. So I challenge you to exercise your faith, labor of love, labor of action and ability. If you have no family visiting with you, if you are not taking up a charitable cause, I'm sure you have a neighbor to show beloveds to loving kindness to with your faith and action and faith works by love. So do that. And second Corinthians nine, it also reads as Apostle Paul was ministering to the Corinthians by letter, but he also sent his ministers to help and collect and giving. And this reads, I really don't need, this is in second Corinthians nine, I really don't need to write you about this ministry of giving for the believers in Jerusalem. For I know how eager you are to help and I have been boasting to the churches in Macedonia, or you could say Macedonia, that you in Greece were ready to send an offering a year ago. So play it as if it's your congregation that people are preparing a gifts, a tithes to your church or to your organization, or what have you your outreach ministry or preparing a charitable gift for those who are salvation army who are given to people overseas, and they're eager waiting for your gift. And as this is happening, the congregation as you preparing your gifts, you have a heart that's genuinely giving out of an attitude of generosity. Okay. And this is what Apostle Apostle Paul was mentioning that they their hearts were ready. They were in preparation to give, and they had a right attitude. Okay. And verse three, it reads, but I am sending these brothers to be sure you really are ready, as I have been telling them and that your money is all collected. I don't want to be wrong in boasting about you. We would be embarrassed not to mention your own embarrassment. If some in Macedonian believers came with me and I found that you weren't ready after all I told them. So I thought I should send these brothers ahead of me to make sure the gift you promised is ready. But I want it to be willing, a willing gift, not one given grudgingly. So having the attitude of gratitude, attitude of generosity to give. Over the summer, I was advertising for chaplain for at risk women of valor scholarships. And I was, I was the forerunner and it says send letters to advocate to make announcements at several churches or NAACPs or you'll yield English Fish and Chip in Rhode Island, different restaurants and agencies to give to a certain cause, but also to make collections to send by mail to go and pick it up, but to make sure they were ready to give and not to be an embarrassment as if not to be empty handed. Those that committed to, they did give and those that couldn't give, they didn't commit. So again, those that did give, they gave willingly and they gave cheerfully. So to God be all the glory. And that's how God wants our hearts in preparation to give during this season of Thanksgiving. And as we are ministering our hearts, our attitudes and services to others to be happy and be a cheerful giver, whether you're serving in the soup kitchen or whether you're at home serving your family members and and to be of a help and to walk in charity, walk in love. Okay. Charity is not just a token of money. Charity is love and action. Okay. So in verse six of chapter nine of second Corinthians chapter nine, verse six, remember this, and this is just like an example, a farmer who plants only a few seeds will get a small crop, but the one who plants generously will get a generous crop. So are you given generously to get a generous crop? You must each decide in your heart how much to give. Oftentimes people make up a pledge before the beginning or after the beginning of the year, January, February of how much they want to give for that whole entire year. Some people will give 2000. Some people will give their to their church a grand or 700 dollars, whatever it might be for the year, whatever your child will give, they said, set it up, you must decide in your heart how to give and how much you are going to give. So oftentimes we might budget for how much, how much we're going to choose in our expenses, just like how you go grocery shopping. You have family that are coming. You don't want to go under a certain amount. So you make budget, you know exactly how much you are going to spend. So if you go over that, you're not exercising and being bitter about it. You're not grudging about what you're doing because you already had preparation how your expenditures of how much you were going to release. So he's trying to prepare the congregation, prepare the assemblies to how to give in the right attitude of right heart and then follow through with commitment in their actions. It says don't give reluctantly or in response to pressure. Don't ever let somebody box you in a corner to give because then it's not fitting and it's not good because you are under pressure. You didn't want to give and then it's just so discord and then you'll remember that a couple of you know a couple of months later and or years later and then you might you know that wasn't really a gift then was it. It wasn't really charitable and love. It was out of a necessity and pressure or coerced being coerced to do it. So you don't want to give in those type of attitudes of that type of heart. It says for God loves a person who gives cheerfully amen. So give cheerfully and God will generously provide all you need as in a Philippians. It says my God will provide all your needs according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus and this is what Paul is articulating and God will generously provide all you need then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others as the scriptures say they share they share freely and give generously to the poor as we mentioned in James chapter three that you don't just send your sister or your brother and say scat and you see they lack food and clothing but you provide for them and stuff their bags and make sure they have sufficiency of all things because they were in need that everybody has things in common. So being a helper and being attentive to people's needs it says they share freely and give generously to the poor their good deeds will be remembered forever. So when you are given generously out of a heart like that as a heart of gratitude and having the right heart before God in a right attitude in your heart in your spirit God is seeing that your charitable gift that you're given will last and it's like a memorial before God forever it reads in verse 10 of 2 Corinthians 9 for God is the one who provides seed so he's allowing you to have the means to give you the good health to provide for you and he's placed seed for you to plant as he did for the farmer and he's giving you bread to eat just like the children when we said what do you think who is God and what does he do the child replied well he puts food on my table he's creator of everything he's in everything so just like you have child like faith even Jesus said if a child has if you have childlike faith that's when you can come on to Jesus and pray you know it doesn't mean you have to have all this theology all these different um big words to express your gratitude or to pray and make supplications before God God hears you even as you have a childlike faith as did those children okay but God is the one who provides seed for the farmer and then bread to eat and the same way he will provide and increase your resources and then produce a great harvest of generosity in you isn't that beautiful so it comes back to you we used to sing this song at Canaan Baptist Church in North Carolina outside of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base when I was in the enlisted corps of the Air Force it says give and it will be given back to you good measures pressed down shaken together and run in over give and it will be back to you good measure pressed down shaken together and run in over give and it will come back to you good measure pressed down shaken together and run in over when you give on to the Lord so oftentimes we see our materialized gifts giving to persons in need but in fact it also is contributing to our faith in what we believe about who and what God is as we as those children as I read to you earlier God if God is seen in everything that means when you're giving your allowing God's causes to be prospered to give on to what you allow your seed to go ahead and grow to the poor to those different agencies to those resources and then you'll have a right attitude in full of the generosity filled in your heart filled with faith given and and God will express that in your walk with God and it's just awesome if you ever felt that awesomeness when you have given and a right spirit and it's just overjoyed but it's not for you to show off but it's about some people feel like it's an intrinsic thing something that can't it can't materialize it's just something in you that feels really good the right thing to do okay and that is what God has given you an expression of joy of generosity that cannot be taken from you it says yes you will be enriched in every way in every way so that you can always be generous amen some people have those generous hearts out there and he wants to continually to stir up the gift of faith of generosity in you okay and it reads when you take your gifts to those who need them they will thank God so two good things will result from ministry of giving the needs of the believers and then also their needs will be met and then again they will joyfully express their thanks to God as a result of your ministry they will give glory to God for your generosity to them until all the believers will prove that you are obedient to the good news of Christ and they will pray for you with deep affection not that they are asking you to pray but by the gratitude in which you had given to those times and those times of resources when they were in need they had a thanksgiving to God that worked out for your benefit and praying to God on on on their behalf for you and it reads because of the oboe flow of God's grace oftentimes we see God's grace happening God is full of grace and he's full of mercy he acts he moves upon all his creation as the children had mentioned earlier that God's grace is working in his creation and within the people within the community within individuals and this is overflowing a grace of God he has given to you amen and it says thank God for this gift that is too wonderful for words that is an awesome appeal to give to the Lord do unto his name give unto the Lord glory due to his name and you your seed your resources will not run out when you give unto God amen it's not again even though you're given to people or those in need or your soul and sees a charity even those people who may not be in need but you're still helping in it it is working generosity in your own human heart God is allowing you to continue to pour more generosity into others because it's working righteousness of generosity in your heart that actions of faith and love working together in you and God said I'm going to increase more generosity when you do it so it's like a multiple multiplying and multiplying and multiplying of your resources and God first and then to people and then back to you amen God and people and back to you God and people and back to you so it may not happen instantly when you receive those results but again God is allowing you to practice generosity and you're given and he wants to reward a generous giver amen so make sure you utilize your your resources wisely so many seeds it says if you cast your seed upon many waters and you may find them upon many areas of your life where you have sown the seed and people's lives you bless them with a vehicle someone blessed you with a vehicle 10 years later that has happened to me I sowed seeds of blessing people and family and friends life and lo and behold I was blessed later on in life with a new vehicle so we never know how God's will reveal his his his loving kindness his grace to others and to ourselves but we know when we have sown the seed it is it will come back to us as God had held in his word it will come back good measure shaking together running over and may God fulfill all his promises for you this holiday season and may your resources never run out amen I decree it today may your resources never run out and may you have all sufficiency everything provided for you that you need according to God's riches and glory in Christ Jesus and in Jesus my name God bless you God loves you I love you and thank you for joining us for this service again happy Thanksgiving weekend enjoy your family go shopping save and also give amen God bless you amen