Give Thanks

Praise and gratitude should be the refrain of the Christian heart. In fact, Christians are commanded to give thanks. Throughout the Old Testament, especially in the Psalms, the people of God are commanded to give thanks to the Lord. In a series of exhortations to the church at Thessalonica, Paul says, “…give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thess. 5:18). It is God’s will that His people give thanks to Him in all circumstances. 

Lately, I have been contemplating what grumbling and complaining are.  To grumble is to protest something in a somewhat muted ill-tempered way. To complain would be a more vocal ill-tempered protest. Given these understandings, are Christians ever justified when they grumble or complain? To answer that, careful consideration needs to be applied when assessing the root of complaining. Grumbling and complaining are both rooted in dissatisfaction. So can Christians ever be dissatisfied about anything? Certainly. Because of the fall and the pervasive spread of sin, we should be dissatisfied when we see acts of sin being committed or celebrated. We should be more than dissatisfied. We should lament (Lk. 19:41; Jhn. 11:35). We should be righteously indignant (Jhn. 2:13-17; Lk. 19:45). To show such dissatisfaction is to be in step with how our Holy God feels about sin. 

But when are our expressions of dissatisfaction unwarranted? I believe when our grumbling or complaining is rooted in a desire to obtain or preserve our comfort and satisfaction, we have wandered over into sinful grumbling and complaining, which is usually accompanied by an ill temper. It’s an exasperated expression of selfishness. One of the strongest biblical cases for this is highlighted in Exodus and Numbers concerning Israel’s deliverance and journey to the promised land, Canaan. Let’s look at the events- 

• (Ex. 2:23-25) Israel cries out to God for rescue from being enslaved in Egypt and God heard their cry.
• (Ex. 3 & 6:1-13) God commissions Moses to be His instrument of Israel’s deliverance from Egyptian bondage. 
• (Ex 7:14-12:32) God displays His power over the Egyptian gods via ten plagues that culminates with the death of every firstborn male, including Pharoah’s son, in Egypt whose home was not marked with the blood of a sacrificed lamb. God’s wrath passed over those houses who had the blood of the lamb on the doorposts and the lintel.
• (Ex. 12:33-40) Israel begins to leave Egypt.
• (Ex. 14) Israel crosses the Red Sea on dry ground as God miraculously drove the sea back via Moses’ outstretched arms. As the Egyptian army tried to pursue Israel, the waters came back down on them and they were consumed.
• (Ex. 15:1-18) Moses and the people of Israel sing a song of praise to God for His deliverance.
• (Ex. 15:22-27) Israel grumbles about the lack of good water and God provides water.
• (Ex 16) Israel grumbles about food and God gives them manna and quail. 
• (Ex. 17:1-7) Israel quarrels and grumbles against Moses for water and tests the LORD by inquiring if He is really on their side or not.
• (Num. 12:1-2) Moses’ sister and brother, Miriam and Aaron, disapprove of Moses’ marriage to a Cushite (dark skinned) woman and questions his leadership, which was appointed by the LORD. 
•  (Num. 14:1-4) After hearing the report by the spies, many people in Israel grumble against Moses and Aaron accusing them of bringing them out into the wilderness to die by the hands of the enemy. They also desire to raise up a leader who would lead them back to Egypt.
• (Num. 16) Korah institutes a rebellion against Moses and Aaron, which was a form of rebellion against the LORD since the LORD had appointed Moses and Aaron to be leaders of Israel. The LORD brought judgment on Korah and all the insurrectionists via death.
• (Num. 20) The remaining Israelites quarrel with Moses about water and accuse him of leading them to the wilderness to die.

Israel repeatedly grumbled and quarreled about food, drink and God’s appointed leaders. Warranted judgement befell a remnant of Israel. Essentially, they were questioning the love of God. Although they had been the recipients of God’s covenantal love and saw mighty acts of His deliverance and provision, they grumbled and quarreled against God because they were dissatisfied with how God was ordering the events in their lives. Their dissatisfaction was rooted in unbelief and resulted in grumbling, quarreling and rebelling against God. 

Aren’t we just like Israel? We often think the events of our lives ought to go as we would like. When they don’t, we end up being dissatisfied and grumble against the Lord. Instead of recalling God’s past faithfulness and being thankful, our selfish short-sightedness only looks at the present and doesn’t factor in that God is working out all the events of our lives according to His will for His glory and for our good (Rom. 8:28). God is not obligated to do things the way that we would like them to be done. He is obligated to carry out His perfect will to achieve the most amount of glory and He will do just that while at the same time conforming us to the image of his Son (Rom. 8:29). Oh how we need to recall God’s goodness toward us, which is primarily evidenced in salvation through Jesus Christ. A heart filled with trust, praise and gratitude has no room for grumbling and complaining. 

Has God saved you? Give thanks! Is God keeping you? Give thanks! Does God promise to bring you to himself through Christ for all eternity? Give thanks! Is God good? Give thanks! Does His mercy endure forever? Give thanks! Does creation testify to His glory? Give thanks! Has Christ defeated every sin and death? Give thanks! Is God’s love toward His people unmovable and unshakable? Give thanks! Has God not given us His Spirit? Give thanks! Has God not given us His Word! Give thanks!  

We give thanks to you, O God; we give thanks, for your name is near. We recount your wondrous deeds.

Psalms 75:1

Thankfulness: The Melody of the Christian Soul

…give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 Thessalonians 5:8)

As the holidays approached, my wife and I kept noticing how store decor went from Halloween to Christmas. In fact, back in July we were at a home decor store and we noticed Christmas decorations already being displayed. We asked one of the store employees why Christmas decor was already being displayed and we were told that many customers like to purchase Christmas decor in preparation for the Christmas season, but it was all for commercial marketing. The end goal was financial capitalization. However, what we also noticed was that there was very little attention paid to the Thanksgiving holiday.

Although there is much discussion about the origin of the Thanksgiving holiday, one thing that we must understand is that it was a day set aside to respond with gratitude. According to American Colonial history, the origin of Thanksgiving originated with praises to God for His benevolence by religious separatists from England in 1620 and was made an official United States holiday on October 3, 1863 by Abraham Lincoln toward the end of the Civil War.

Read Lincoln’s Thanksgiving proclamation

It is clear from Lincoln’s proclamation that a day of thanksgiving was to be set aside nationally as a day to thank and praise God for His abundant mercies toward the United States, even in the midst of a Civil War. Not only was it a day of thanksgiving, but it was also a day to confess national sins seeking the mercy of God. Now, I’m not here to debate the theology of Abraham Lincoln or the sincerity of his Christian profession, but to reveal what the proclamation stated. It is important to understand that the Thanksgiving holiday was started as a response to the benevolence, grace and mercy of God.

The Grounds for Thanksgiving

Every year around this time something strange happens that I’ve noticed and I imagine you have noticed it too. I hear people say, “We’re so thankful!”, “I’m thankful for….”, “I’m blessed.” These expressions of gratitude lack an object of gratitude. In other words, there are expressions of thankfulness attached to no one. They are just impersonal expressions of gratitude as if the blessings for the things that people are thankful for occur in a vacuum. There is no one on the receiving end of those impersonal expressions of gratitude. Think about that. Isn’t it strange how the human heart can detach the origin of the blessings from an expression of gratitude? Does an expression of gratitude truly make sense apart from the provider of such blessings? In my loudest voice I want to shout out, “To whom are you thankful for such things?!!”

Scripture repeatedly reminds us that God is the source of all of our blessings. The epistle of James says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” (James 1:17)

But we don’t have to get that far in the Bible to understand that everything that has been given to us has been created by God. We read of this in the very first book of the Bible. And this is a refrain throughout the rest of Scripture. The Lord reminds His people, and even those who oppose Him, that He is the Lord of all and He gives and withholds according to His discretion. He causes it to rain on the just and the unjust. He alone is the person we give thanks to for everything. Without someone ultimately to thank, gratitude is meaningless.

What Thankfulness Reveals

For Christians, thankfulness ought to be as normal as breathing if we truly have grasped the gospel and its implications. If we are a thankless people, either we have not truly grasped the gospel or we are really not part of God’s elect. Consider the gospel and some of its implications: we have been freed from the Father’s wrath, there is no condemnation for us, we have been reconciled to the Father through Jesus, we are the friends of Jesus, we will receive an eternal inheritance in the new heavens and the new earth, we are no longer dominated by sin, we will no longer be afflicted by Satan, we have the Holy Spirit, we have the word of God, we have the community of the church, we have spiritual gifts, God provides our daily needs and all of the effects of sin will one day be removed from our experience. We have so much to be thankful for! Praise be to God for his indescribable gift! (Romans 11:36)

To be thankless is to stand in opposition of all that God has done for us in Christ Jesus. However, genuine expressions of gratitude by Christians reveal the fundamental truths about our nature and God’s.

• Expressions of gratitude to God reveal that we are insufficient for all things.
• Expressions of gratitude to God reveals our recognition that God is wholly the source for all things.
• Expressions of gratitude to God reveal our humility.
• Expressions of gratitude to God reveal His benevolence.
• Expressions of gratitude to God guards our hearts from having a critical spirit against God.
• Expressions of gratitude to God are forms of spiritual warfare against Satan and his demons.
• Expressions of gratitude to God are ways of inducing joy to the heart.
• Expressions of gratitude to God is worship.

Because God’s mercies are new every morning, thanksgiving should be the melody of the Christian soul.

Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever! (Psalms 118:1)

Grace and peace,

d.