Christian Living

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Thanksgiving - The sound of Heaven!

“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and strength belong to our God forever and forever. Amen!” - Rev 7:12.

‘Enter His gates with thanksgiving; go into His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him and bless His name. For the Lord is good.’ - Psalm 100: 4-5a.

There are a great number of things with which we currently occupy ourselves and so much of our precious time that will not pass beyond the veil that we call death, and will not be part of our lives in our eternal and glorious future home. Even things which are good and right and are most definitely God’s will for us, things such as daily confession of sin, sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ, praying for salvation, healing and for God’s kingdom to come etc. There will be no need for these expressions of our hearts and tongues when this current world has passed away and for that reason, we should take every opportunity to engage in these activities now while we can. However, there is something that we can and should do now and that we will only find ourselves doing even more in eternity. That activity is the practice of giving thanks, which goes together with praise to make up the sound of Heaven.
For a child of God, thanksgiving should not merely be that one day allotted each year, that holiday designated by the powers that be, which is seemingly more about celebrating excess than giving thanks to a good and gracious God. To the Christian, thanksgiving should be a daily state of living, an acknowledgement that all and any good thing that occurs in our lives is an undeserved gift from a gracious and benevolent God who has lavished us with His love (James 1:17, 1 John 3:1) and that in Him we live and move and have our very being (Acts 17:28). The celebration of that day we call thanksgiving should look very different in a true Christian home than in the home of those who do not know the Lord. How is eating to the point of gluttony and watching football an act of giving thanks, and who do they give thanks to anyway?
Of all the people on this planet, it is the followers of Jesus Christ who should be the most thankful of all. Of all those believers it is we in the affluent west, this land of plenty with our freedom of religion, numerous bible translations, our lifestyle that the rest of the world would consider the lap of luxury, it is we who should be most loudly and fervently giving thanks. Sadly this seems not to be the case as we have become so enamored in having that we want more, so used to the lifestyle and luxuries that we enjoy that we take so many of them for granted while becoming discontent with what we do have. We truly have much to learn from our brothers and sisters in other lands. They may have few of the comforts or amenities that we take for granted, a great many are suffering greatly for their faith in Jesus, bibles are scarce, meeting with other believers is difficult and dangerous, many have been disowned by their own family members. We may look on at these maligned and oppressed brothers and sisters in Christ and pity them, but the fact is that with all that they do not have, what they do have in abundance and could teach us much about is thankfulness. That is because their perspective has not been distorted by the world and culture in which they live as has our own.

Why we give thanks -
Thanksgiving is the overflow of the tongue from a heart that realizes the great good that has been done to it; it is the outward expression of an inner attitude of immense gratitude.
Thankfulness puts us in our proper place with God, it acknowledges that He is the Creator and we are His creation, He is the giver and all we can do is receive from Him. It reminds us of God’s sovereignty, that it is He who rules and reigns over all. It reminds us of His goodness and grace, He did not have to do anything for us but He chose to love us, rescue us and adopt us as His own.
You may say that of course, you are thankful and because God knows everything, there is no need to keep thanking Him. This may be true in theory but will not work in practice, and if we are not regularly thanking God for all kinds of things then we really need to examine our hearts. We have been brought into a relationship with God through Christ, what kind of relationship exists without communication and expressions of emotion? A thankful heart will automatically overflow to the mouth ‘For whatever is in your heart determines what you say’ (Matt 12:34b).
When we give a gift or do a good deed for another and that person thanks us, we may reply, “don’t mention it”, but do we really mean that? If we regularly did good and gave gifts to someone and they never mentioned it and never said ‘thank you‘, we would likely consider that person to be unappreciative and ungrateful and eventually turn our attention to those who will appreciate our generosity and voice their thankfulness.
Obviously, God has infinitely more patience than we do, but is there a point when God will turn His attention away from a thankless person?
In Romans chapter 1, the apostle Paul chronicles the downward spiral of humanity to its wicked and perverse state. We are told that God actually gave people over to their own foolish ideas and lusts; He abandoned them because they continually refused to acknowledge Him and give Him thanks.
‘Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship Him as God or even give Him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. The result was that their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they became utter fools instead.’ (Romans 1:21-22). ‘So God let them go ahead and do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. Instead of believing what they knew was the truth about God, they deliberately chose to believe lies. So they worshiped the things God made but not the Creator Himself, who is to be praised forever. Amen.’ (Rom 24-25).
Reading this insightful portion of scripture, we can see these very things continuing to happen today before our eyes, all stemming from the refusal to acknowledge God or give Him thanks. Do you think that maybe giving thanks is a big deal with God?

What did Jesus think about giving thanks? -

Jesus, even though He was fully God as well as fully man still found it necessary to give thanks to His heavenly Father ( Matt 11:25, 26:27, Mark 8:6, John 11:41).
In chapter 17 of Luke’s gospel we have the account of ten lepers who came to Jesus for healing, they all asked for mercy and were all healed, only one however returned to Jesus overcome with gratitude to thank Him. -
‘One of them, when he saw that he was healed, came back to Jesus, shouting, “Praise God, I’m healed!” He fell face down on the ground at Jesus’ feet, thanking Him for what He had done. This man was a Samaritan. Jesus asked, “Didn’t I heal ten men? Where are the other nine? Does only this foreigner return to give glory to God?” And Jesus said to the man, “Stand up and go. Your faith has made you well.” (Luke 17:15-19).
From this account we can see that Jesus expects and wants us to be thankful, giving thanks is giving glory to God, which is our whole purpose in life after all, and to fail to give thanks grieves the heart of Jesus and is a failure to glorify God.

Humility, the fertile ground in which thankfulness grows -
Humility is an increasingly overlooked yet vital component of godliness. Christianity in the west, at least the public and commercial face of what calls itself Christianity, has all but turned its back on this attribute that is at the very heart of all true Christianity. Humility is not groveling in the dirt by people who have a problem with low self-esteem. True humility is an admission that we were helpless and hopeless, before God, in His mercy and grace saved us. It is the admission that without God we are wretches capable of great evil, and that any real good we can do or virtue we posses is because of Him. Humility is a sober realization of our great need for God; not only for eternal life but also for every breath we take. It puts us in the place of dependant children ever needy yet also aware that we are tremendously privileged. Humility while recognizing that on my own I can do no good thing also believes that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
We can see therefore that the truly humble person is the person most likely to be truly thankful. Prideful people have a hard time saying ‘thank you’ to anyone, let alone God. Pridefulness is the enemy of thankfulness yet humility produces and sustains a thankful heart, thankful lips and a thankful life.
If only we would see ourselves as we truly are and realize our daily dependence and great need for God, then we would be a people of genuine humility and therefore, great thanksgiving.

Thankfulness and grace -
Grace is at the very core of the Christian doctrine and life, and goes hand in hand with humility. Indeed, we cannot even receive the saving grace of God until we humble ourselves by confessing our sin and admitting our great need. The grace of God seeks out the humble sinner to rescue and bless (James 4:6-10) Receiving grace leads to thanksgiving because we know that what has been freely given to us could never be earned, purchased or repaid. The more thankful we are the more we are growing in grace. Yet if we get into a mode of trying to repay God; a law based system based on works and sacrifices, our thanksgiving will dry up. Therefore, we are able to gauge our growth in grace and faith by our quality and quantity of thanksgiving.

In psalm 5o God speaks to Israel through Asaph, the people had regressed again into a self-righteous mode of sacrifices for the wrong reasons; they thought they were actually giving to God. God corrects their faulty thinking,
“If I were hungry, I would not mention it to you, for all the world is mine and everything in it. I don’t need the bulls you sacrifice; I don’t need the blood of goats. What I want instead is your true thanks to God; I want you to fulfill your vows to the Most High. Trust in Me in your times of trouble, and I will rescue you, and you will give Me glory.” (Psalm 50:12-15) “But giving thanks is a sacrifice that truly honors Me” (Psalm 50:23a).
Basically, God is saying to His people, “I have no needs; I am the owner of everything, the Most High God. It is you who are needy, acknowledge your need to Me, and stop trying to bribe me or think you can give Me something. All I require from you is your thanks and prove the genuineness of your words by living for me, this thankfulness is what honors Me and brings Me glory.”

Grace freely receives what is given and is immensely thankful. The law refuses the offer, and instead tries in vain to earn it, therefore remaining thankless.

Thanksgiving and prayer -
‘Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart.’ (Colossians 4:2).
‘We always thank God for all of you and pray for you constantly’ (1 Thess 1:2).
‘Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done. If you do this, you will experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.’ (Phil 4:6-7).

We see from the above examples that thanksgiving and prayer go together, indeed prayer without thanksgiving is incomplete, whereas prayer with thanksgiving leads to God’s peace in our lives.

Thanksgiving is the will of God -
Christians often say they are seeking God’s will for their lives, in 1 Thessalonians Paul tells us specifically what is God’s will for us. -
‘Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.’ (1 Thess 5:18). Do you want God’s will for your life? Then start right here.
Our thanksgiving is not to be dependant upon our circumstances but to transcend our circumstances. We are not told to give thanks for every circumstance, that would lead us to some strange prayers, but we are to remain thankful in the midst of whatever may happen to us. After all, the thing we have to be thankful for above all else is God’s love and acceptance in our salvation and that remains steadfast and unwavering even if all else around us falls apart. Paul did not merely preach this from an ivory tower, he lived it from dungeons and stockades to shipwrecks and beatings (Acts16:24-25, 27:35).

So the question to you and I is, do we daily thank God for all He has done and especially for our salvation? Many of us find ourselves thanking God more for the food that we eat than for the destiny changing, eternally joyous truth of being adopted by the Almighty king of all creation, by the sacrifice of His beloved Son. Therefore, when we give thanks to God, let us thank Him for all things, but may we not forget or neglect to thank Him for the greatest gift of all - Himself.
‘Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! His faithful love endures forever. Has the Lord redeemed you? Then speak out!’ - Psalm 107:1-2a.

Giving thanks can be evangelism -
If we are regularly engaged in giving thanks we are of necessity forced to remember the things that we have to be thankful for. This should further cause us to recognize and be thankful for new things that happen in our lives. If we deliberately choose to be a people of thanksgiving, we will find it increasingly difficult to think too highly of ourselves, and begin to see our own complaining and griping as grumbling against God Himself. Practicing the discipline of thanksgiving should make us more joyful, grateful and gracious Christians and that alone is one of the most effective tools of evangelism as people look on and witness your life and are drawn to the gracious God to whom you give thanks.

A word of warning -
It is possible for our thanksgiving to be nothing more than a noisy gong or a clashing cymbal (1 Cor 13:1). It is possible for our mouths to be thanking God while our hearts are far from Him (Matt 15:8). It is possible for our very act of thanking God to be sin for us if we are thanking Him for something that displeases or dishonors Him.
Jesus told a story of a Pharisee and a tax collector who went to the Temple to pray.
‘The proud Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: “I thank You, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else, especially like that tax collector over there!” - Luke 18:11.
Jesus tells us that this man’s prayer was rejected by God while the humble plea of the tax collector for mercy was accepted as he left the Temple justified before God.
May this be a warning to us to examine ourselves to see if we are being genuine before God.

Thanksgiving that does not lead to thanks living is an abnormality, like a stillborn child it fails to live up to our hopes and expectations. If we find ourselves thanking God with our lips while living like ingrates, we need to stop, remember where we came from and where we were headed, and repent. If we will not, God is able to cause us to be thankful, often by the withdrawal or removal of certain blessings if only for a season, or as long as God sees fit to accomplish His purposes. He is sovereign and He does have that option, whether or not He chooses to use it is entirely up to His supreme wisdom. Rather than sinking to this pitiful state, it would be much better for us to get rid of all thanklessness in our lives and become a people of great thanksgiving accompanied by sincere thanks living; living each and every day with an attitude of gratitude, which pleases our heavenly Father.

Questions to ask ourselves -
Can we be satisfied with less while thanking God still more? Can we begin to look at heaven as our investment portfolio and true assessment of our net worth? Do we truly believe that the Christian who has nothing but Christ has infinitely more than the person who has everything but has not Christ? Can we begin to live like it, spreading about the sweet fragrance of thanksgiving?

‘Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. And whatever you do or say, let it be as a representative of the Lord Jesus, all the while giving thanks through Him to God the Father,’ - Colossians 3:16-17.

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