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GIVING THANKS
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Thanksgiving is an activity in which we give to God
instead of asking Him to give to us, because the grateful heart has access
to God’s grace. To understand what it is to give thanks, we can start with
Hebrews 12:28, “Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let
us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly
fear.” The King James Version says, “Let us have grace,” the NIV says, “Let
us be thankful.”
The word in the Greek for grace is CHARIS, which requires
one to say “Thank you.” There is a direct connection between grace and
thankfulness, between receiving grace and giving thanks. When we are
unthankful, we are out of the grace of God. We cannot enjoy God’s grace without
being thankful. Nor can we separate thankfulness from the grace of God. And
whether we say, “Let us be thankful.” or “Let us have grace.” we are really
saying the same thing.
In Paul’s letter to the Romans, the Holy Ghost outlines
the decline of the human race from the inherent knowledge of God to appalling
wickedness. The first chapter ends with one of the Bible’s most horrible list
of human degradation, misery, and wickedness. We might well ask ourselves how
it is that humanity could ever decline to that level? The answer is given in
verse 21: “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God,
neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish
heart was darkened” (Romans 1:21). Paul thus describes the first two downward
steps that lead into the dark pit described at the end of the chapter: First,
the people didn’t glorify God as God; and second, they were not thankful. Every
time a person ceases to be thankful, he or she starts down a slippery path. Let
me warn you: Don’t even start on that path because it’s hard to turn around and
make your way back up again!
What kind of conduct is the opposite of being thankful?
The best Bible word is the word murmuring, or in more modern English,
complaining. Let me suggest that whenever we say anything, it is either
positive or negative. Few words are neutral. If we are not expressing
gratitude, we will almost certainly end up murmuring and complaining. It just
doesn’t pay to murmur, because it exposes you to fiery serpents as it did the
children of Israel in Numbers 21. Not necessarily physical serpents, but all
sorts of poisons enter into you through murmuring and unthankfulness.
We are faced, then, with two opposite possibilities:
being thankful, which opens the way to God’s presence and to His miracle-working
power, or being a complainer. We must make up our mind to be one or the other.
The Choice is clear. By God’s grace, I am going to be thankful. I am going
to continue to find the Scriptural reasons for being thankful. And I am going
to practice thanking God all the time.
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