Friday, November 23, 2007

A Mandate To Be Thankful

While I'm not American, it is hard to ignore that the American thanksgiving has recently passed by. So, my thoughts turn to the topic of being thankful. Really, being thankful is not something we should rekindle merely once a year. We have repeated instruction in the Bible to be thankful. For example:

And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (Col 3:15-16)

The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God! (Psalm 50:23)

Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! (Psalm 100:4)

Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. (Ephesians 5:4)

do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. (Phillipians 4:6)

May we all obey these calls to thanksgiving!

As a side note: In a recent sermon, Douglas Wilson made an excellent point about Jesus Christ's thankfulness. Jesus thanked God for the cross even before He asked if He could be spared it and before He actually went through all that agony! With that pattern, we ought to thank the Lord for good things and even for hard and terrible things, thanking Him for the deliverance ahead of time!

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