In our house in Benton, some time ago we took out the upper half of a wall between the kitchen and living room. This opened it up nicely giving it a more spacious feel. The top of the half-wall, covering the back side of almost eight feet of cabinets, is a natural place to stand with your arms lying across the top to visit with whoever is in the kitchen. It was recently decided that it would be good to have a twelve-inch butcher block style bar top mounted on the full length of the wall. With that expressed by my beautiful wife, I gave my full agreement to the idea by offering for that completed work to be my Christmas present to her. Since I am no longer equipped to build it all myself, I had a local cabinet maker to glue the boards up and plane them down to size. Now I am in the process of getting the 12 x 90 x 1 ½ inch thick counter top mounted and finished out with a durable, exterior polyurethane varnish. We have decided to finish it out natural so the different colored boards in the glued-up countertop will be beautifully accented. This is our new thing that we are excited about. God said He was going to do a “new thing” (Isaiah 43:19). It started unfolding to the world when the angel announced to Mary that the Holy Ghost would come “upon” her and “overshadow” her and the “holy thing” that would be born of her would be called the Son of God (Luke 1:35). Jesus, the Son of God, came and gave Himself to be the once-for-all perfect sacrifice for the sins of mankind. With His finished work, there is no longer the need for animals to be sacrificed. He was the spotless “Lamb of God” who accomplished the redemption of all mankind from the slave market of sin. By the suffering He took for us, by the tortuous beating that He took at the hands of sinful man, He paid the price so that we can be healed in spirit, soul and body. By the anointing of the Spirit that was upon Him, we can receive the supernatural power of God upon our lives to live victoriously here and now, and to boldly share with others the good “thing” that God has done for us all. Jesus was raised from death by that power of God, and He is now seated in heaven in spiritual authority over all. Now by His accomplished work, life, power and authority, we can live in the presence of God victoriously both now and forever. It all operates by turning from sin and our way of doing things and trusting in God’s “new thing,” Jesus. By believing in the Spirit-anointed Savior, we have it all. In this upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas season, we can be thankful for the gift of the Spirit-anointed Jesus given in love for the welfare of all mankind.