It can be easy to dwell on gratitude on Thanksgiving Day; after all, it’s the whole point of the holiday we’re celebrating today. We’ve all seen the scenes of families going around the table with everyone saying what they’re thankful for, and maybe your family does this, too. (To be honest, I can’t imagine that the cliché of everyone dressing up for the Thanksgiving table is all that common, but whatever.)
Growing up, I had sort of an antagonistic relationship with Thanksgiving. In my childhood mind, Thanksgiving stole the thunder from the more important holiday the same week — my birthday — although the appealing corollary to it was that I only had to go to school on my birthday two or three times over the years.
As an adult who is getting more mature with each birthday, I love Thanksgiving. I love most of the food, I love how it leads us straight into the Christmas season, and I love how the “Clean Old-Fashioned Hate” of the Georgia-Georgia Tech game follows shortly after. (Go Dawgs!)
Most of all, I love Thanksgiving because of what it is — an opportunity to give thanks. If you’ve read many of my Sunday Thoughts columns, you know how important worship and praise are to me, and that continues when it comes to Thanksgiving.
Flashback: Thursday Thoughts: Thanksgiving All Year Long
The Bible is full of encouragement to give thanks (all the verses below are from the English Standard Version). The psalms alone are a treasure trove of opportunities to express your thankfulness.
“Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!” Psalm 100:4 encourages us.
“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever,” declares Psalm 136:1.
Psalm 147:7 encourages us to “Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving,” while King David says in Psalm 69:30, “I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify him with thanksgiving.”
Psalm 92:1-2 tells us that “It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High; to declare your steadfast love in the morning, and your faithfulness by night.”
The sacrificial system under the old covenant included an offering for thanksgiving, and the holidays that Jewish people still celebrate today include expressions of gratitude. The kings of Israel and Judah expressed their thanks for God’s protection and deliverance from enemies. The prophets also acknowledged God’s faithfulness despite Israel’s constant wandering away from Him.
The Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” He admonished the Colossian church to “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving” (Colossians 4:2).
The author of Hebrews wrote that Christians should “continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name” (Hebrews 13:15-16). And Paul told the Corinthian church, “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57).
The Apostle John reported that we will be praising and thanking God throughout eternity: “And the twenty-four elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying, ‘We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, who is and who was, for you have taken your great power and begun to reign’” (Revelation 11:16-17)
So let’s give thanks to the Lord — not only today but every day!
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