{"id":9202,"date":"2020-12-16T12:46:05","date_gmt":"2020-12-16T17:46:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/?p=9202"},"modified":"2020-12-16T12:46:05","modified_gmt":"2020-12-16T17:46:05","slug":"archimandrite-sergius-on-giving-thanks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/?p=9202","title":{"rendered":"Archimandrite Sergius on Giving Thanks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIn everything give thanks: for this is the will of God concerning you in Christ Jesus\u201d (Thes<br \/>\n5:18.) Everything in our life is a gift, \u201cfor what do we have that we have not received.\u201d It is<br \/>\nthrough our thanksgiving to God that we transform the good and the bad things in our lives<br \/>\ninto the mystery our eternal salvation. According to the Holy Fathers, thanksgiving to God<br \/>\nfor all things intercedes for our weaknesses and makes up for our infirmities before the Lord.<br \/>\nThe greatest gift to give thanks for is the incarnation of our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus<br \/>\nChrist Who is the Life and Light of all. It is God Himself Who comes to us again in the flesh<br \/>\nthis Nativity to meet us during the darkest time of the year, bringing us the greatest and<br \/>\neternal light. Thanksgiving is the gift that we can offer back to God for all of His gifts,<br \/>\nespecially that of the incarnation. It is only through thanksgiving that we can hope to not<br \/>\nonly transform our current state regardless of what is happening, but also through it God<br \/>\nbestows on us even more gifts because of our gratitude. In every season of our life, let us give<br \/>\nthanks to God. With every joy in our life, let us give thanks to God. In every trial and<br \/>\ntribulation, let us give thanks to God, because through this we will improve our state and<br \/>\nthrough this God will bring about the greatest miracle of all, our eternal union with Him<br \/>\nwhich saves us for all eternity. May the Lord who comes to be born in a cavern for us and for<br \/>\nour salvation renew, bless and strength us all to meet Him with thanksgiving this year for<br \/>\nall things and most especially for the greatest Gift which is God Himself.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; 2020 Nativity Newsletter of St. Tikhon&#8217;s Monastery<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-9119\" src=\"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/IMG-2140-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/IMG-2140-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/IMG-2140-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/IMG-2140-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/IMG-2140-640x480.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIn everything give thanks: for this is the will of God concerning you in Christ Jesus\u201d (Thes 5:18.) Everything in our life is a gift, \u201cfor what do we have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-modern-orthodox-elders","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9202"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9203,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9202\/revisions\/9203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}