Give Thanks to The Lord

by Darryl Manning            11/18/01

At Thanksgiving our thoughts turn to giving thanks to God for His many blessings. Many passages in the  Bible encourage us to give thanks unto the Lord. Psalm 105:1-4 says

Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done. ² Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts. ³ Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice. ⁴ Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always.

 The word glory in verse three means to make a show; to boast; and thus to be (clamorously) foolish; to rave; to celebrate. This verse clearly indicates we are to give thanks to God with visible demonstrations of our love and appreciation for him.

In Deuteronomy 28:47-48 we find a warning of what will happen when we fail to serve the Lord with joy and gladness of heart.

Deuteronomy 28: ⁴⁷“Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of everything, ⁴⁸therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything; and He will put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you.

Today I want to use the letters of the word thanks to share thoughts about Thanksgiving.

The T stands for thank you. We would not think of failing to say thank you to anyone who gave us something. God has given us much more than any human being could ever give yet many people fail to say thank you to Him.

God has blessed America more than any other nation. We should be showing our gratefulness to God but a majority of Americans fail to attend church on any given Sunday to give thanks to God. We seem to be an ungrateful nation in many respects.

The H stands for heart felt. God knows our heart. We can say words of thanksgiving but God knows whether they are sincere or not. I have found that I must discipline my worship so that I can keep my mind upon God. There are so many distractions that happen around us it is easy to let our mind wonder. It is important to consecrate our hour of worship to God alone.

The A stands for all. Fist it stands for “all the people.” Wouldn’t it be great if all the world would worship and give thanks to God? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our whole nation would give thanks to God? What if all our state gave thanks to God? We cannot be responsible for the world, the nation, or our state. We cannot even be responsible for our county, our city, or our church. We need to take responsibility for our family and ourselves. We do have responsibility where we have authority.

Second, the all stands for “all our strength.” Over a year ago, God spoke to me and said, “I want you to love me with all your strength.” I interpreted that to mean I must get my body involved in worship. I began to immerse myself in the songs and began doing what the songs said. If it said bow, I bowed. If the songs said kneel, I kneeled. If it said clap your hands, I clapped. If it said dance, I danced. If it said shout, I shouted. Now my worship requires my strength and sometimes I am exhausted by my worship.

The N stands for now. Now is the time to give thanks. You do not need to wait for a worship service. Give thanks when you rise in the morning, when you retire at night, when you eat, when you drive, when you work. Give thanks to God now.

The K stands for knowledge.   Know what you are thankful for. As Americans we have lots of “things” we should be grateful for. We have nice houses, automobiles, boats, and recreational vehicles. However the most important thing we must be grateful for is our salvation.

Jesus’ disciples came back from a preaching tour rejoicing over the power they had been given over demons and sickness. Jesus quickly corrected their focus.

Luke 10: ¹⁷Then the ^£seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.”

¹⁸And He said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. ¹⁹Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. ²⁰Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but ^£rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”

We must be careful not to place too much emphasis on the “things” God gives us. We must deepen our gratefulness for the salvation God has given.

The last letter is S and stands for sweet. Proverbs 16:24 says “Pleasant words are like a honeycomb, Sweetness to the soul and health to the bones.” Our words of thanksgiving are pleasant to God. They are sweet to Him. But they also come back sweet to us and bring us health.

Last year I was in a prayer meeting at church. I was sitting on the front of the platform in our sanctuary when God spoke to me. He said. “Remember the question you always had about why I want you to praise me and why I desire your worship?”

Immediately I remembered asking this question many times. My reasoning was that if God was all powerful and self sufficient, why should he need our praise and worship. “Yes Lord,” I replied. “I remember the question.”

The Lord said this to me. “You know that you reap what you sow. Your praise and worship are reflected back upon you. The more you praise and worship me the more glory is reflected back to you. I personally do not need your praise or worship but they are for your benefit.” 

WOW!  Can you believe our God! He is worthy of all our praise. He is worthy of our worship. He wants our praise and worship so that He can reflect back to us His great love and benefits.

 

GIVE THANKS TO GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEAR, SOUL, MIND, AND STRENGTH