Thanksgiving

Christians are redeemed people – redeemed from the wrath of God that stands upon any man because of his sins which separates him from a holy and righteous God and brings a judgement upon him for his evil actions. Truly, Christians are set apart from the rest of the world because they act differently, they think differently, they eat differently, everything that they do is done differently than the rest of the world because they are from a different kingdom, the kingdom of God. It is an identity to be a Christian and to walk according to the kingdom of God. This “set apartness” is called being holy. Anything less is confusion and corruption. The Bible tells us to do everything for the glory of God: “whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). Therein lies our difference with the rest of the world. We are not our own any longer, we do not live to please ourselves or others, but we live to please our King, the Lord Jesus who purchased us with his blood, gave us eternal life and brought us into this new kingdom where we can live in freedom (Colossians 1:13). One of the areas this difference manifests itself is in our gratitude. Christians are grateful people in every circumstance. As we are in the season of Thanksgiving, I thought it appropriate to ponder on this kingdom attribute as a way of encouragement to us.

Much of our kingdom attributes are independent of circumstances, life challenges and difficulties we go through. We are commanded to rejoice in all seasons (Philippians 4:4), we are commanded to praise the Lord at all times (Psalm 34:1), to pray at all times (1 Thessalonians 5:16), to do good always, to bless those who persecute us, to go the extra mile of not just being “good” with those that are good with us because doing that would be similar to the way the world does things and there is no reward in that, instead, our call is to be good to those that are not good to us (Matthew 5:43-44). The standards of the kingdom of God are much higher than the world’s standards and quite often opposites. However, being grateful or giving thanks is not something that is only specific to Christians as other people groups and religions encourage that character but the difference with the gratitude the Bible calls us to have is one that is based upon humility, a broken and contrite heart. God calls us to bring our heart in everything we do because it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks (Luke 6:45). When we are grateful, we recognize that we did not have to get the thing we are grateful for or that whatever we got could have been given to someone else and so it is an acknowledgement to the giver that we are thankful for his gift. Unfortunately, being sinful creatures as we are, we do not always think of giving thanks for what we are given. We take many things for granted and worse we complain of the gifts we receive. Some of us even return the gifts we receive because they do not meet our “standards”. This is the norm of our society, but the word of God teaches us to be different. Gratitude is something that is close to God’s heart, for He often rebuked Israel for forgetting what He had done. That sin of forgetfulness led to a lack of thanksgiving. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 says “give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus”. The will of the Father is that we be thankful. How often do we think about thankfulness as something the Father wills of us? Because we are so used to taking things for granted, we seldom think of giving thanks for what we have. We minimise what we have because we compare what we have with what our neighbour has. Moreover, our love of control prevents us from giving thanks. Indeed, being grateful humbles you, it allows you to acknowledge that someone else brought you something, not the work of your hands. This might be the biggest reason many of us are ungrateful or do not give thanks. We do not like to feel indebted and receiving gifts or being helped by someone else puts us in that situation. How often do we cry to the LORD for help and when He actually shows up and delivers us we start to resent Him from doing the very thing we asked Him to do? This is what the Israelites did when the LORD rescued them from the hand of Pharoah, bringing them out of Egypt. When they were out of Egypt in the wilderness, they complained and longed for the life of oppression God delivered them from. Furthermore, as they kept complaining to the LORD, He provided manna for them. Instead of being grateful, they were not satisfied and wanted meat like they used to have in Egypt. The lack of thankfulness, the lack of humility, the lack of sensitivity, the lack of honour among other is a testament to how self-centered Israel was and so are we when we fail to celebrate the LORD and give Him thanks for what He has done.

There is not much to be said on the topic but just to do. I am grateful that there are holidays like Thanksgiving that call us to be thankful but for the Christian, this should be a habit, it should be part of what you do and who you are. I do not know if you often pause to think about what the LORD has done for you, or if you practice thanksgiving on a regular basis whether it is for the basic things in life you have or for the things you get from family, friends and acquaintances but I would like to encourage you to thank the LORD often irrespective of your circumstance. Whether you are happy or sad, rejoice in the LORD. Some days you will not feel like thanking the LORD, use the Scripture to help you thank the LORD in those days. The word of God is powerful in that it draws us to the heart of God and the Holy Spirit steers us in the right direction when we do not know how to pray. So today, I want to thank the LORD for His gift of salvation to me, I thank Him because He chose me before the foundation of the world, He changed my life completely, He kept me grounded and still does, He is with me always, He loves me, He protects me and has rescued me from so many foes. He has given me a wonderful and loving family both in the nuclear sense and the spiritual. For all these things and more I am grateful. What are you grateful for? What can you thank the LORD for?