Giving God Thanks

Psalm 100:3-4
Ephesians 5:20
1 Thessalonians 5:18
 
We may not always think about being thankful.  Sometimes problems and situations may make us feel less than fortunate.  But for each one of us sitting here, there is something that we can look at or think back to and thank God for.
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As I stand here this morning I thank God for this moment and I thank God for you all that are sitting here.  I thank God for a job. I thank God for my family: my sons, my daughter, my grandsons, I thank God for all of them.  I thank God most of all for the shed blood of Jesus and that I’m saved.  I thank God for what He has done.  There is so much that we can thank God for.

Thanking God is what the scriptures tell us to do. Psalm 100 tells us that we are to come into God’s presence with thanksgiving and with praise – we must give God thanks and give God praise.  Not only that but we are to bless His name.  We bless the name of God by acknowledging Him for all He has done.
In Ephesians 5:20 we are told to give thanks always for all things. We need to give God thanks for the things that we have been taking for granted; things like a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, three meals a day and more.  

Sometimes you can be in a situation where you’re going through things.  It can be marital problems (some Christians have marital problems too).   You can have problems with your children (some of us have problems with our children too).  We can have financial problems (some of us can even have problems with our finances).  But regardless to what, we should thank God. In everything give thanks – this is what we read in 1 Thessalonians 5:18. We should thank God and praise God for all that He has done, even when we have problems. Don’t forget to take time out to thank God for what we do have, like our health; thank God for strength!  

There are so many people wishing for what we have. I mean you got people with millions of dollars, brothers, who wish they were able to get up like we got up this morning.  Yes, there are millionaires wishing for something.  Some wish they were able to dress themselves and wish they were able to go out.  Now, all of us can get in a car and drive if we need to go out and do something, but there are people that seem to have everything who are wishing they had the health that we have.  Maybe some of us might have some little health issues but there is somebody that wishes they had little health issues instead of major health problems.  We must, as the psalmist said, be thankful unto Him and bless His name.

We thank God that we live in a country where we can worship freely.   We thank God that we can all gather here in this place and say some things about giving thanks.  There are places in the world where we couldn’t do what we do here.

We should be thankful for those men and women that are in Iraq and Afghanistan and other parts of the world that won’t be able to come home this week and sit down to the table with their sons and daughters and eat Thanksgiving dinner. We should also remember that there is somebody who will be sitting at the table whose son or daughter lost their life - maybe in the Middle East, maybe in the street or wherever.  There will be an empty chair sitting there.  We need to pray for them.  We also need to pray for those brothers and sisters in war torn countries who are fighting on our behalf. Let’s consider them as we sit around our table and ask for God’s blessing.

We all have so many things that we can give thanks for. Take some time this Thanksgiving season to give thanks to God.  As you are sitting around the table consider asking your family members: “What would you like to thank God for?”

I thank God for many things, and I thank God for you, my brothers and sisters in Christ.  May God continue to bless you.  In all things, give God thanks.
~J.T.