Thanksgiving Essays
This site annually hosts essay contests in November/December entitled "Why I am personally grateful to God." The essay was to be written including reasons why the author was grateful to God and how He has helped him in his life. Entries were selected on the basis of how they gave glory to God.
| 2001 Essay |
| No Entry Received |
| 2000 Essay |
| There is one real reason I am grateful to God. It is that
I am able to sit here today and type this. My answer is very simple
here. The basic fact that I am able to convey my emotions, and that I
have emotions which I can share is a miracle in itself. Before, when I
was doubting God and Christianity, I had no direction, no reason. Now I
do. I know that everything that happens to me, good or bad, has meaning.
Through my mistakes and talents, pain and happiness, I have learned more
about myself and the world than I ever would have without God. Without
God, nothing kept me from being unfaithful, nothing moved me. Without
God, I became very apathetic and undriven. Now, I am criticized for my
beliefs. I attend school in the engineering department of a university
and few of the students are religious. Often I have a hard time
justifying myself to these people. This has only makes me stronger,
because I am logical myself yet I still have strong faith and emotion
when it comes to my religion. To turn around an individual like myself,
God deserves praise. God deserves praise for allowing me the ability to
convey my beliefs through science. God gave us the ability to find the
truth, to answer questions. God gave us wonderful emotions all for free.
My understanding of God has not only made me more faithful but a better
person in general. But this understanding is only possible by God!
Without God, nothing is possible, but with God, so much is possible, and
I have witnessed this first hand by accepting Christ simply by my own
investigation and questioning, not by force from parents, etc.
Adam |
| 1999 Essay |
| I am personally grateful to God, because I was uncertain in
the path that I had chosen in life. Just under a year ago, I tried to
commit suicide; However, I was unsuccessful, even though I had very high
and dangerous levels of poison in my body. I took this as a sign from God
to change my ways and better myself. A second chance if you will. I'm am
very grateful for this "second chance" that he has given me. I
have used it in a productive way, I went on to graduate high school with
my class, and I am now attending college and maintaining a 3.33 GPA as a
true freshman with 17 credits, while being an active member of the track
and field team. I have become an active member of a local Christian church
that is here near my college campus. I am serving God in any way that I
can through my newly found church, and I feel that he has shown me my true
friends, and how I would have hurt them if I would have accomplished my
horrendous act. Every morning I wake up grateful that I am alive and well,
thanks to God and the second chance that he has given to me.
Joe |
Reflections
We are what we think.
- 09/18/2018 07:00 AM
6 Straight A Christian Thinkers
The Christian church has been graced with brilliant and influential thinkers since its inception. A list of “who’s who” in Christian scholarship would be long and diverse in terms of scholarly disciplines. To whet your appetite in the areas of theology and philosophy, here’s a snapshot of six “straight A” thinkers. By “straight A,” I mean two things. First, I’m…
() - 09/11/2018 03:40 PM
Take Up and Read: Making Sense of It All
I am writing this ongoing blog series on Reflections to encourage Christians to read more vigorously and enrich their lives with Christian classics in such fields as theology, philosophy, and apologetics. Hopefully, a brief introduction to these important Christian texts will motivate today’s believers to, as St. Augustine was called in his dramatic conversion to Christianity, “take up and read” (Latin: Tolle lege) these classic…
() - 09/04/2018 07:00 AM
How to Discern Education vs. Propaganda
There is a lot of discussion these days about things like fake news, yellow journalism, and political propaganda. There is also a lot of attention given to whether public schools and colleges in our time educate or indoctrinate when it comes to the instruction of their students. So what’s the difference between education and propaganda? Let’s look at seven ways education differs from propaganda. First, we’ll define three…
() - 08/28/2018 07:00 AM
Learning about Christian Creeds, Part 3
If you come from a non-creedal Christian church tradition—and there are a good number of them within Evangelicalism—you might wonder what a creed is and why other Christians include them in their worship services. Historical theologian Jaroslav Pelikan defines a creed thusly: “A creed is a concise, formal, and authorized statement of important points of Christian doctrine.”1 One of the great things…
() - 08/21/2018 07:00 AM
Learning about Christian Creeds, Part 2
Ever hear the expression “No book but the Bible, no creed but Christ”? Ironically, it sounds a lot like a creed. Some Christians who attend churches that do not use a formal creed wonder how creeds are related to Scripture in terms of authority. From a Protestant evangelical perspective, the creeds derive their authority by faithfully conveying the message of…
() - 08/14/2018 07:00 AM
Learning about Christian Creeds, Part 1
Have you ever recited the Apostles’ Creed? It is widely used in Western Christendom, both in the Roman Catholic Church and in various Protestant churches (Lutheran, Reformed, Presbyterian, Anglican, Methodist, Congregational, among others). In fact, most evangelical churches have creedal statements that serve as something like the Apostles’ Creed. Some nondenominational churches even sing the creed in their worship services. Christian historian…
() - 08/07/2018 07:00 AM
Take Up and Read: Man’s Search for Meaning
This current blog series on Reflections is intended to encourage Christians to read more vigorously by providing a beginner’s guide to Christian classics in theology, philosophy, and apologetics. My hope is that these introductions to important Christian texts will motivate today’s believers to, as St. Augustine put it, “take up and read” (Latin: Tolle lege) these classic books. This week’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning, by…
() - 07/31/2018 07:00 AM
Presuppositional Apologetics: One Helpful Approach among Many
Apologetics is that branch of theology that seeks to provide a reasoned defense of historic Christianity. Through the centuries, Christian thinkers have given consideration to different models or modes for defending the truth of the faith. Thus, today there exists a variety of methods for engaging in the apologetics enterprise: classical, evidential, cumulative case, new Reformed epistemology, and presuppositional.1 Here I’ll take a…
() - 07/24/2018 07:00 AM
Top 10 Ideas in My Book Christian Endgame
With common reports of terrorism, various natural disasters, and even potential nuclear war, people are again fascinated with the subject of the end of the world. So topics like Bible prophecy, the rapture, the Antichrist, and the nation of Israel are frequently subjects of Christian discussion. Moreover, it seems virtually every year or so a Bible teacher, prophet, numerologist, cult…
() - 07/17/2018 07:00 AM
Two More Movies to Make You Think in 2018
How much of your recreation time is devoted to watching movies? For many people, watching films at the theater and viewing movies at home are staples of their pastime enjoyment. As a philosopher, one of the things I most enjoy in life is learning something significant about truth and reality. Therefore, I like watching films that are true stories or…
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Last updated November 25, 2001
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