APPRECIATION

How many sunsets have you seen during this last week, this last month, this last year? How many have you seen in the last ten years, the last twenty, the last thirty? I do not ask how many have you glanced at, but how many have you gazed upon, paid attention to, pondered?

On how many have you held your mind long enough for it to become impressed, for an influence to be diffused through your heart, for a discipline to be exercised upon your spirit? How many sunsets stand out vivid and glorious on the walls of your memory?

We should all enjoy the sunsets more, if we had to pay an admission fee, if some enterprising showman could curtain off the western sky, and, walling in the edge of the world, should advertise in all the papers: "Beautiful Sunsets every evening next week- best seats ten dollars each; seats in the balcony five and four and three dollars according to location; gallery seats one dollar each."

It is a lamentable fact, that what is customary soon becomes commonplace. The oft-repeated soon loses its power over us. Repetition seems to sear the heart as if by a red-hot iron. If the sun went down only once in a hundred years what a world-wide commotion the sunset would create!

1 Sam. 12:24, “Only fear the Lord, and serve him in truth with all your heart: for consider how great things he hath done for you.”

Psa. 78:4, “We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done.”

I. WE SHOULD APPRECEIATE THE SUNSETS

Psa. 89:11, “The heavens are thine, the earth also is thine: as for the world and the fulness thereof, thou hast founded them.” Psa. 74:16, “The day is thine, the night also is thine: thou hast prepared the light and the sun.”

II. DO YOU APPRECIATE THE RAIN?

The Rain Represents Life & Death Gen. 2:5, “And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.”

Gen. 7:5, “For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.”

The Rainbow Gen. 9:13, 14, 16, “I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud… And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.”

III. DO YOU APPRECIATE THE HEAVENS?

Somewhere up in those heavens is the place God has prepared for all His saints! Psa. 8:3, “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained.”

David was a star gazer. Psa. 102:25, “Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands.”

IV. DO YOU APPRECIATE LIFE?

Psa. 34:12, “What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good?”

To respect life is to care for others!

Care For Our Children

Prov. 17:6, “Children's children are the crown of old men; and the glory of children are their fathers.”

Care For Our Seniors

1 Tim. 5:1, 2, “Rebuke not an elder, but intreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren; The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity.”

Care for the Community

Care For the Church Gal. 6:10, “As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.”

Treat your brother and sister with respect! Ephesians 4:2, “With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love.”

Treat your brother and sister with compassion. 1 Pet. 3:8, “Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous.”