This is the time of year when we talk about the pilgrims who celebrated their first Thanksgiving. Our kids may make costumes of these settlers with their buckle shoes, tall hats and long guns with flares on the barrel. In truth, these pioneers left their motherland due to religious persecution, braved a harrowing sea voyage to the new world, and had survived their first deadly and difficult season as a new colony. While we may view the pilgrim as a measure of someone with true grit, determination and godliness, the term has not always been used in this way. John Wayne popularized the phrase “Howdy, Pilgrim!” in some of his westerns. However, in the old west, it was considered derogatory and an insult to be called a pilgrim. It was a way of telling someone who had moved to the wild west from their comfortable life in the east that they were in over their head.

By definition, a pilgrim is “a person who journeys to a sacred place for religious reasons.” The Bible calls all believers “pilgrims” for this reason. In this life, we are all on a journey to a better place – a heavenly place – to be with our Lord and Savior for all eternity. We face difficult and deadly circumstances along the way and yes, just like it was used in the old west, we are sometimes in over our heads. This was the heart of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. If you have never read it, I’d highly recommend it to you. It’s an allegory of the Christian’s life that rings just as true today as when it was first written.

So, what are some lessons that you should embrace because you are identified as a “pilgrim”? Here are three thoughts from Hebrews 11:13-16…

1. You may DIE in your faith – “these all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off” (v.13). Did you know that 45 of the 102 passengers aboard the Mayflower died in their first winter? The pilgrim life can be brutal and harsh. Sometimes, people die in their faith. We don’t understand it or appreciate it, but in faith we trust that God has His will, timing, and purpose in our death. The important thing to know is that when death comes, that we will die “in the faith”. We need to have that personal assurance of salvation through Jesus Christ. If you don’t have that assurance, please write to me and I’d be happy to help you.


2. You EMBRACE the promise – the pilgrim is one who sees the promises of God as a sure reality. Verse 13 says those who died in the faith “were persuaded of them, and embraced them”. Did the pilgrims know they would survive and flourish? No. Some of them didn’t. Yet, more than 35 million individuals living today are direct descendants of those pilgrims who came on the Mayflower. But the promises of God are much greater and more sure than this. No, you don’t know what may become of you, but you do know that God is faithful, unchanging, and all-powerful. He wants your witness to be something that echoes through the generations. He wants your faith to cling to His promises as if they are a reality today.


3. You PLEASE God – “God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city” (v.16). Someone who is ready to die for their faith and accepts the promises of God as a reality is also someone who God is not ashamed to call one of His own. In other words, you make God proud! So many times we see people who call themselves Christians that are not walking according to what they say they believe. You know when you have met someone who is the real deal. These are the ones to whom God will one day say, “Well done, good and faithful servant… enter thou into the joy of thy lord” (Matthew 25:23).

So, go ahead and celebrate the pilgrims that gave us the occasion to celebrate this Thanksgiving. Be thankful for the great freedoms and opportunities that still exist in our nation. But, more importantly, be a pilgrim in our own walk of faith. Be ready for the hardships, be conveyed by the promises, and let your life of faith be something thatpleases the Lord.