“Our Need For Thanks”

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe… 

"Our Need For Thanks"       

    The Bible commands that we thank the Lord, so much so that the Apostle Paul commanded, "In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you" (I Thessalonians 5:18).  Why does our Heavenly Father so greatly desire our expression of gratitude for His presence, provision, and working in our lives?

    The answer lies not in any need He has for our thanksgiving.  If no created being ever offered thanksgiving, God would be no less fulfilled and content.  "If I were hungry, I would not tell thee" declared the Lord through the Psalmist (Psalm 50:12).  We meet no need in our Lord because no need exists in Him.  He is perfectly content in His triune existence as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Thus, when we give thanks, we fill no emotional void in God.  He desires our expressions of appreciation, and according to Scriptural revelation, clearly enjoys them.  However, He does not lack in any way if we fail to offer gratitude.  

   Our Lord's calling to give thanks and our capacity to do so rather meets need in us.  We require a heart of gratitude and frequent expression of thanksgiving in order to live in truth and reality.  Our Heavenly Father supplies our very existence and everything in it.  "He giveth to all life and breath and all things" (Acts 17:25). The realization of such grace surely elicits grateful appreciation in all who see the Heart and Hand that provides "every good gift and every perfect gift" (James 1:17).  In humanity, sin has clouded our vision of how much God gives and how utterly dependent we are for His ongoing bestowal of "life and breath and all things."  When we accentuate such truth by the realization of our Heavenly Father's freely given salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ to undeserving sinners, we recognize how desperately we need to live a life and eternity of utmost gratitude to God.  "O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, because His mercy endureth forever" (Psalm 118:1).

    We greatly honor our Lord when we give thanks, revealing His abundant generosity by our acknowledgement and response to the grace of His giving.  We also please Him thereby, first and foremost because it blesses our hearts and the hearts of others with the light of truth.  God does not selfishly crave our acknowledgment.  He is perfectly fine and fulfilled if He never receives it.  However, we are not at all fine and fulfilled if we do not give consistently give thanks with an ever-increasing awareness of how much God gives, how little we deserve His kindness, and how all things come to us through the grace of Christ's saving work on our behalf.  Indeed, He purchased our next breath with His shed blood, along with every other gift we will ever receive from His nail-pierced hands.  How we need to give thanks for such grace, and how we please and honor Him when we join the Psalmist in his determination to offer perpetual gratitude…

"O Lord my God, I will give thanks unto Thee forever."

(Psalm 30:12)   

    

Weekly Memory Verse

    "O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, because His mercy endureth forever."

 (Psalm 118:1)

  

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