I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the Lord.  Psalm 116:17

I saw a sign at a church recently which said, "The best vitamin for a Christian is B1." The best way to know if a Christian is taking his or her vitamins is their thanksgiving. If our relationship with God is right we can be thankful for all things, just like we are commanded by God to be. On the other hand, if unconfessed sin, disobedience, or doubt is in the picture, there will likely be more complaining than contentment. This spiritual nutrient in a nutshell is "Get God right and everything else will be right." When we know whatever we have or don't have is right, we can be thankful for it, even if it hurts and seems to be wrong.

One reason our thankfulness ebbs and flows is that we are naturally selfish. It's hard to be thankful when we don't get what we want or when something's taken from us that has meant so much to us. The best way to shake off this selfish spirit to go directly to Jesus Christ. He is the most selfless person who ever lived on Earth. He went so far with it as to thank His Heavenly Father for giving eternal life to the ones He gave His life for on Calvary's cross.

I have glorified thee on the earth:  I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. John 17:4

Glorifying God is real close kin to thanking god. Jesus Christ always did His Father's will and He was thankful all the time. Even when it didn't seem adequate or could never be enough, He thanked His Father for two fishes and five loaves of bread. We should never forget it's not about us, it's about God. And, like Jesus, we should ever be about our Father's business and that in itself is sufficient to be thankful for the rest of our lives on Earth.

This "it's about me" attitude is a sure struggle between the flesh and spirit and is the battleground for some of the most heated spiritual warfare. Mirrors will melt this madness if the Holy Spirit provides us a redemptive redemptive reflection. One of those mirrors is the bible. Holy words tell us plainly who God is, what He has done, what He is doing now, and what He will do in the future. The other mirror is the one in our bathroom where we see to fix our hair, brush our teeth, or shave. The next time we go there we should look at ourselves in the mirror and ask the Lord to help us see not what we look like, but whose we are -- His!

What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own. 1 Corinthians 6:19

There is no way to be truly thankful until we come to grips by God's grace that God owns everything including ourselves and the most significant others He places in our lives too. As we do this, and it doesn't happen over night, we can get a handle on life so to speak. When we do, we can be thankful for what God hands us or for what He takes from us. Mainly though, we are thankful because we are in His powerful hands.

Thanksgiving is a lot like love in that it is an action as well as an attitude. It's a verb not a noun! Jesus warned that in the end times the love of many will grow cold. May the Holy Spirit stir the coals of compassion and contentment in our hearts as we are awakened to the greatness of Almighty God and the gratitude of being a child of the King.

Thanks Is For Giving

The psalmist declared he wanted to give God something for all that God had given him. It's not that we have to pay God back for what He has done for us, especially and most prominently forgiving us of our sins. Jesus paid it all, our salvation as far as eternal life is concerned is complete. It's a done deal, we don't have to keep the payments up either.

A sacrifice is mentioned here with good reason. It's a response of grace really and implies the beneficiary's willingness to give up his own feelings or desire, and give up his time with the other cleansed leper in the gospel of Luke as he gave up his time with the other cleansed lepers and went out of his way to thank Jesus for doing such a miraculous act of mercy for Him.

And fell down on his face at his fee, giving him thanks:  and he was a Samaritan. Luke 17:16

A godly mother once told me that when one has a child, their life becomes a sacrifice. Likewise, when a person is born again their life from then on is best lived sacrificially. The living of life is really measured best by the giving of thanks. Think about it. The more something costs you, the harder you have to work for it, the more valuable it is, the more thankful you are for it! We'll probably not be very thankful for anything that doesn't coast us something. Did you know that God is thankful for you? That's because you cost Him the blood of His only begotten son!

In the New Testament, we are told that we should present our bodies a living sacrifice unto the Lord, we can be sure our God won't accept such a sacrifice if it's not also a sacrifice of thanksgiving. We cannot give God anything He needs for He needs nothing, not even us. We can however give Him what He wants -- Thanks!

Thanks Is For Getting

One aspect of our everyday lives we probably wouldn't admit we struggle with is knowing the difference between our wants and needs. God is committed to giving us, through Jesus Christ, all we need but not all we want. What should probably generate thanksgiving for most of us is the precious truth that God did not give us what we wanted. Hindsight is always 20/20 and often looking over our shoulders we see how close to destruction we actually came by wanting some of the things, positions, or people we thought we had to have.

A good catalyst for thanks is to make a list of the things we are thankful for right now in our lives. Most likely this list will also fit real good under our needs list. It's good to know that our Heavenly Father provides for our every need. Surely we should be thankful for what we get. And anything we get comes from God and since it comes from God it must be what we need. Sometimes we get things we don't think we need and don't even want. Yet, later on, and maybe we haven't gotten there yet, we will see it was just what we needed, even though it hurt.

Christians are containers or vessels set apart by God that He can put things in which will be used for His glory and for helping others. Every day we live on Earth we get something from God. He is always giving us something and it all has a purpose too. If we are not thankful for what we get, it just may be that we don't have the right container to put it in. Several years ago a man I knew at the Lake Primitive Batptist Church invited me to come too his house to get some blueberries. When I got to his house, I was embarrassed when he asked me if I had brought anything to put the blueberries in and I had to say, "no, I forgot to bring a container." I wonder too if my not bringing something to put the berries in implies by lack of gratitude. We'll all be more thankful by looking for and receiving life's graces as from the very heart of God and embracing them all to be all we need!

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shade of turning. James 1:17

Thanks Is From Growing

The more we know God, the more we love God. The more we know God, the more thankful we ought to be! Humility is the soil best suited to set our roots of faith in. When we consider God's grace, His unmerited favor, knowing that we are sinners not deserving of even one blessing yet we bask in and are soaked with His bounty and mercy -- we're not only thankful but we grow more thankful. We should be more thankful today than we were yesterday. When we all get to Heaven we'll be even more thankful than we ever imagined we could be. This is why Heaven is a place where so much praising and singing and worshiping God is going on!

Not only are God's people container, they are also living plants, trees of righteousness and branches on a vine. Thanksgiving is a real good monitor of the quality of life of God's plantings. I have an app on my phone which identifies plants. sometimes when I want to know what some tree or grass is, I'll open the app and take a picture of the plant. Immediately the plant ID shows on the screen and then right on the same screen the health of the plant is evaluated. This app is pretty blunt too, for it often says, "Your plant is not healthy."

Only God can save our souls, only God can make rain or a plant grow. When you see a thankful person, you can be sure that God is in the picture. Considering whose we are and what we represent should make us all more photogenic than we are. If God too a picture of you today, would you be a healthy plant? If you are, it wouldn't be because you said "cheese," but because you are thankful.

Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Colossians 2:7

Happy Thanksgiving! Brother Randy