Since we are in the month of Thanksgiving, we will look at that subject for the next several weeks. Our text this week reads; “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” The Spirit of God teaches the souls of believers this lesson of thankfulness. We need our hearts tuned to the praises of God; thankfulness is encouraged under the gospel.
William Cooper, a 17th century Christian, writes: “Thankfulness demonstrates a spiritual and noble frame of soul in the highest pitch of grace. The Lord Jesus taught us thankfulness both by pattern and precept, and he thanked God frequently and fervently. Even when he was to eat common bread, he gave thanks.”
Our lives are precarious, and are always at God’s mercy. God in his sovereignty might have never made us; our existence is miraculous, not simply in the forming of our bodies but the amazing providence that preserved all our ancestors up to the time we were conceived and born.
Years ago I was invited by a friend to a church supper. Even though I was not a minister at the time, it must have been in me, because I couldn’t turn down a home cooked meal. While eating
, a man across the table introduced himself, and upon hearing my name inquired as to who my father was. Hearing my response, he exclaimed, “I saved your Daddy’s life.”
He then proceeded to tell me the story of fishing in a lake years ago when he saw a young boy in a boat fishing, suddenly fall into the water. The boy went down and did not surface. The man hurried over and dove into the water, rescuing the dying youth. The boy was my father. When I later talked with my father about the story, he confirmed that it was true. It struck me how close it had been to my never having been born. I wondered at how many other remarkable preservations had taken place with all the necessary lives of my ancestors for my existence.
Years ago, a young unmarried woman suddenly collapsed and the doctor in the town could not detect a heartbeat, so she was pronounced dead. In those days you were buried quickly, so the poor woman was placed in coffin and after a short ceremony was buried. The church sexton had noticed a gold ring on her finger, and seeking to profit from this knowledge went that night to the grave yard to get the ring.
After he finished digging the coffin up, he opened it, and in the process of struggling to get the ring off the young woman’s finger, she awoke. Obviously she was not as dead as she was presumed to be! She later married and gave birth to two boys: Ralph and Ebenezer Erskine. They both became very well-known and faithful ministers in 18th century Scotland.
We should all marvel at our existence, and come to the conclusion God’s power over us is absolute and infinite. To the Sovereign One we owe all, and therefore we owe him all our thanks. Of course, greater than our mere existence is the blessings of the gospel, the decree of God to send Jesus for poor sinners, opening up the fountain of grace for us, the infinite merit and righteousness of the Son of God upon the cross. All this deserves a suitable and proportionate gift of thanks and blessing from us if we believe.
We should also give thanks for God’s Word. The Word of God is not a forbidden, but commanded fruit we are to eat of. If you don’t know Christ, you have a deadly wound by neglecting the Scriptures. You are like a desperate patient that throws away the only medicine that will bring about a cure.
If you belong to Christ, renew your thankfulness by delighting to look into your heavenly Father’s will he has revealed in the Scriptures. Weigh every word, knowing it is a great treasure he has left for your instruction, consolation, and very life as you finish your days here. Let thankfulness have arms and legs in your actions. Make thanksgiving your daily companion and counselor.
