Psalms 92:1-6
“It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to the Most High. 2 It is good to proclaim your unfailing love in the morning, your faithfulness in the evening, 3 accompanied by a ten-stringed instrument, a harp, and the melody of a lyre. 4 You thrill me, Lord, with all you have done for me! I sing for joy because of what you have done. 5 O Lord, what great works you do! And how deep are your thoughts.6 Only a simpleton would not know, and only a fool would not understand this: 7 Though the wicked sprout like weeds and evildoers flourish, they will be destroyed forever. 8 But you, O Lord, will be exalted forever.”
Being thankful is a basic Biblical teaching but one which we seem to so easily ignore today. Here in Psalm 92 we have a powerful reminder that we are called to be a people of praise. Yet when it comes to thanking God for all that He has done I wonder how many of us are only giving thanks with our lips, while our hearts remain detached and apathetic. The Psalmist reminds us that it is good to thank God. Are you grateful to God for all that He has done? Do you recognize that the good things we enjoy come from Him? James 1:17 says “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” We owe God our gratitude because of His goodness to us. James doesn’t say that God gives some good gifts but every good gift. This leaves nothing out for every gift we receive in this life is filtered first through the Fathers hands. From the gentle warmth and growth of spring time to the golden leaves of fall, from the fun of summer to the wonderland of winter. Every raindrop is a sparkling jewel of His love. Every sunrise a masterpiece of mercy and a reminder that God has given you one more day of blessing. Every rainbow is a painting of His promise, a gift of grace given to the underserving. Every mouthful of food is given as a gift from our Father. From the life giving rains that quench our land to the simple smile on a child’s face all of these are God’s gifts to us. Yet how many of these precious gifts do we overlook? Are you living life attuned to God’s gracious gifts, are you aware that all that you enjoy in this life comes from Him? Many of us are not living in Awe of His gifts because we are not even aware of them. Today our lives are so rushed that we don’t have time to stop and smell the roses. When was the last time you stopped and deeply inhaled the fragrant sent of God’s goodness? When was the last time you marveled at the majesty of His creation? Are you taking God’s gifts for granted? Verse 4 reminds us that giving thanks to God will bring us delight, “You thrill me, Lord, with all you have done for me!” Thanksgiving is not just to be a duty but a delight. The psalmist doesn’t just praise with his lips but with His whole being, from proclaiming God’s love and faithfulness with His mouth, to the music of the ten-stringed lyre and the melody of the harp. Thanksgiving should engages all of us, this is not partial praise but a pouring out of praise. When we remember the reasons we have to be thankful we should be engaging our whole being, head, heart and hands. With our words, our songs, and our thoughts, we are to find joy in thanking God. So how are you showing your thanks? Have you discovered the joy of expressing your thanks to God for His good gifts? Part of the joy of receiving a gift is telling others about it, so who are you sharing your thankfulness for God with? When was the last time you marveled at the miracle of His mercy? Willis P. King said “Gratitude is from the same root word as “grace,” which signifies the free and boundless mercy of God. Thanksgiving is from the same root work as “think,” so that to think is to thank.” What about you are you grateful for His grace? Does your heart well up with a thankful joy that cannot be contained on the inside and so it shows on the outside? One of the reasons I believe that we are a thankless society today is that we are a thoughtless society. The psalmist invites us to ponder God’s work, listen to His thoughts, and considering His lavish love as subjects of our thankful praise. What has God done that should make us glad, He has made us, we are the very works of His hands. Psalm 139:13-14 “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” ‭‭We are not just a wonderful part of God’s work we are the praise of His work. We are His treasure yet sometimes like the palmist in Psalm 144:3 we are tempted to ask: “O LORD, what are human beings that you should notice them, mere mortals that you should think about them?” Sometimes we swing the pendulum between the extremes of self worth. From an unhealthy feeling of worthlessness to the poisonous perspective of pride, where we act like the world revolves around us. President Roosevelt and William Beebe were known to played a game that put life into its proper perspective. ‭‭Before retiring to bed, Roosevelt and his friend the naturalist William Beebe would go out and look at the skies, searching for a tiny patch of light near the constellation of Pegasus. “That is the Spiral Galaxy in Andromeda,” they would chant. “It is as large as our Milky Way. It is one of a hundred million galaxies. It consists of one hundred billion suns, each larger than our sun.” Then Roosevelt would turn to his companion and say, “Now I think we are small enough. Let’s go to bed.” When we view the vast galaxies in the nights sky they have a way of centering our swinging pendulum. We may be tempted to live life as if we were the center of the universe, but as we see the vastness of His creation we are reminded that we are only just a small part of all that God has made. But when we question why God would care about us so much. We are reminded that among the billions of beings that have ever existed, we are not just a number to God, for He knows our name. Isaiah‬ ‭43:1‬ ‭says: “But now, O Jacob, listen to the LORD who created you. O Israel, the one who formed you says, “Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine.” When you doubt that He knows you and cares for you remember the words of His Son Jesus in Matthew 10:29-31 “What is the price of two sparrows—one copper coin? But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.” Our hearts should be filled with gratitude for the works of God for not only has He made all things, including us, but He cares about the works of His hands. He has not made us, and left us to figure it out, He sent His one and only Son Jesus Christ to die for us on the cross. We have the opportunity of a life time, to be saved from our sins and live with Him forever in Heaven. He made us to know Him and enjoy Him forever. Are you rejoicing in your relationship with Him? Are you heralding your praise or hiding it?

1 Chronicles 16:34

“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever”

How often do you express your gratitude to God? More often than not instead of an attitude of gratitude for all that He has done we simply take God for granted. Instead of thanksgiving being our steady song it seems to have become our silent song. Today thanks seems to have been drowned out in a chorus of complaining. We are more often displeased with something than we are grateful, we are far less thankful than we should be. Preacher and scholar W. T. Purkiser said this about thanksgiving, “Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving.” In 1 Chronicles 16:34 we come across the phrase “Give thanks to the Lord” which is repeated throughout the Old Testament, appearing 45 times in five different books. Like a battle cry it rallies the people of Israel to come and offer their sacrifice of praise to the Lord.

• Give thanks

The word that we translate as thanks in English means so much more in Hebrew. Here the word yadah means, “to make public acknowledgment” it is where we get our English word confess. It means to both confess the name of God, to publicly proclaiming His name and to confess sin. Giving thanks is an act of humbling ourselves before God and showing gratitude to Him for all of His bountiful blessings. Confessing the name of God means telling others about all that God has done for us, where confess our sins means telling God all that we have done against Him. It take courage to confess God before our peers but Jesus gives us a great promise in this area saying in Matthew 10:32 “whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven” Praise is faith in action, for in order to praise God you must first believe in God. Hebrews 11:6 says, “Without faith it is impossible to please Him. For he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.”  Praise is a decision, are you diligently seek God through praise?

• Give thanks to the LORD

It is not enough just to be thankful, we need to be thankful to the Lord. Scripture makes it clear that we are to offer our thanks to the LORD, He is the only one who is worthy of our praised for He created everything. Paul as he preached to the men of Athens in Acts 17:24 explained that it was “God who made the world and everything in it.” He is the one who brought Egypt to its knees, defeating pharaoh and freeing the Israelites. He is the one who parted the Red sea and brought them in to the promise land. He is the One who sent His One and only Son Jesus to come and save us from our sin.  What do you need to thank God for? Thank Him for His power, thank Him for His person, thank Him for His provision, thank Him for His protection, thank Him for His presence, thank Him for His peace, and thank Him for His pardon. When you consider all that He has done for you why wouldn’t you choose to live a life of praise?

• Give thanks because He is good

We often use the word good to describe something as being of ok quality, as if it is secondary or not as superior. For example if I tell someone that they did a good job, it doesn’t carry the same weight as if I said that they did a great job. So when you say that God is good it just doesn’t seem to be good enough. If you look up the word good in a dictionary you will soon discover that there are multiple meanings for the same word. But the Bible is primarily concerned with the moral aspects of goodness, it refers to the holiness of God. We have a God who is good in:

Character

Good first and foremost describes the character of God. The truth is that God is good and He cannot be anything but good. He is our standard for goodness, we cannot make ourselves good, but God’s grace can change our hearts. We are called to grow in goodness, 1 Peter 1:15-16 says, “But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. 16 For the Scriptures say, “You must be holy because I am holy.” God desires for us to be like Him. Second God is good in His:

Conduct

Because He is good, all that He does is also good. James 1:17 says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” Not only is He good in character and conduct but also in His:

Care

God’s cares for us is not just an attitude but an action, He willingly sent His Son to die for us so that we could be forgiven and He cares so much that He refuses to leave us were He found us. In Philippians 4:19 Paul proclaims that “this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus.” HE desires to supply all of our needs not some of them, and that means our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual needs.

• Give thanks because He loves us

The Word of God confirms that God’s love endures forever. There may be times in your life when you feel unworthy of His love but there will never be a time in your life when God does not love you. The Hebrew word for love is the same one that is used to describe God’s covenant relationship between Him and His people. It is through these covenants that God has revealed His faithful love to His people. With the ultimate example of His love being displayed in the new covenant, that was established through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. His love never fades or fails; it is a love that we can count on because it endures through all things for all time. That means that there has never been and never will be a time when God does not love you. His love even endures through those times when we rejected Him, or are living in rebellion against Him. Even when we don’t love ourselves and see self as unlovable, God still loves us. Are you giving thanks, and who are you giving thanks to? Are you giving thanks to God because He is good, for His character, His conduct and His care? Are you living a life of thankfulness because of His love? We have a God whose love endures through all time for all time.