A Giver of Thanks - Always

All of us have received countless, unmerited gifts from our God and Redeemer, the greatest of which is our union and communion with Christ Himself which is ours by faith for eternity. But we have received many lesser gifts as well – and as I said, countless and unmerited. All of us have also not received many gifts from our Lord, and often these are gifts which we see others have been given and we wonder why God does not like us or what have we done wrong.

When we forget that God is the giver of every good and perfect gift, we begin to boast in ourselves over the gifts we have received, which makes us prideful, arrogant, selfish, and miserly. We worked hard for these gifts and too bad for everyone else. When we forget that God is the Sovereign One who has decided, for good reasons, not to give us gifts which we would like to have now, but He has given them to others, we begin to think we’ve been cheated, that God is not good and kind, and this makes us envious, bitter, faithless, and generally miserable people.

What must we do? We must give thanks in all things. We must give thanks every time we DO NOT receive a gift that we wish we had. We must thank God for His sovereign wisdom, His perfect timing, His ways which are beyond finding out, and the stories He has given us over and over again which prove that He always has good reasons for His timing and choices.

But that is hard – for all of us. Begin here: begin with giving thanks for all the gifts you have been given. Make a list. Practice giving thanks for the smallest things. Practice giving thanks over and over again for those things. Discipline yourself to be a thankful person all the time in all the little, mundane things, so that you are well trained to handle giving thanks when God doesn’t give according to your plans or time.

He has called you here to give thanks – to give thanks for your salvation and the promised salvation of the world – some of which we can see and much which we cannot yet see – to give thanks for His perfect works of sanctification in and through you and throughout His church – to give thanks for the Triune God, for the power of the Word and Spirit at work in us – and this service ends with a Eucharist – a Thanksgiving Meal, where we cap off our thanks with thanksgiving. This should flow over to a time of fellowship and feasting this Sunday at our monthly feast – but it should spread out into all the days of this week. Give thanks – in all things. Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say- rejoice.