by Rose Murdock

What does it mean to be thankful?  According to the American Heritage Dictionary it means to be grateful.  And to be grateful means to be ‘appreciative of benefits received.’  So to be thankful is a responsive action right?  If to be thankful means that we are grateful and appreciative of something we have received then it means that we had to receive something first right?  It means that someone did something for us or gave something to us first.  And then after we received from them we responded to their action by expressing appreciation.  Both of these words, thankful and grateful, also mean to be expressive of one’s thankfulness and gratitude.  This is basically the definition of the word thank-you.

The Bible says in 1 John 4:19 that "We love him, because he first loved us."  So we love God because… We love Him because of something He did for us already.  That sounds a lot like the definition of thankfulness and gratitude doesn’t it?  Our love for God is really an expression of our appreciation to Him for what He’s done for us.  Our love for God is really an expression of our gratitude to Him for sending Jesus Christ to do what He did.  Our love is a response to His love.  Our love for God is really a thank-you.

With that in mind we can see then that our thankfulness to God is an expression of not only our love for Him but our faith in Him also.  Since thankfulness is an expression of gratitude for something received then to be thankful to God means we know we have received something from Him.  When we thank God for our salvation then we are thanking Him for sending Jesus Christ and we know that we have received Jesus Christ into our lives.  And we know what that means.  We know it means we are delivered from eternal death and have passed into eternal life now.  We have already received it.  Since we can’t see that yet then our love and thankfulness to Him is an expression of our faith.

If we’re having trouble expressing our thankfulness to God for what He’s done for us by sending Jesus Christ then we should ask ourselves how much do we really believe in what He’s done?  I believe the level of our thankfulness to God will increase as the level of our understanding does.  When we understand what Jesus accomplished for us by suffering what He did then we can choose to believe.  And when we choose to believe that the Bible is true and Jesus really did what it says He did then the more thankful and grateful we will be.  If you don’t feel your expression of worship to God is very heart-felt then dig into the Word and find out what all Jesus has done for you.  Make a choice to believe that what the Bible says is true and stir up your attitude of gratitude!  I’m not talking about a feeling because feelings come and go and our faith is not based on feelings.  But I’m talking about your decision to believe God’s Word is the truth.  Your decision to worship Him and the desire to express your worship and thankfulness to Him.  Find something to be grateful for.  There’s a whole lot God has done that we can be grateful for.  Find those things and focus on them.  Begin to thank Him for those things.  Don’t wait until you feel like it.  Gratitude is not a feeling, it’s a choice.

Maybe you just haven’t thought about it.  Maybe you’ve never realized that you should thank God for what He’s done.  It’s not that you don’t appreciate it but you just never really thought about expressing your thanks to Him.  There’s something about saying thank you that gets God’s attention.  Look at Philippians 4:6-7:

"Be careful (anxious) for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.  And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."

Prayer along with thanksgiving brings great peace into our lives.  Are you lacking peace?  Do you have problems that have stressed you out?  Do you pray but yet you still don’t have peace?  Well then pray with thanksgiving.  Become thankful while you pray.  Why are you thankful?  Because you are grateful for something received.  What have you received?  The solution to your problem!  You’re grateful because when you pray is when you receive the answer to those problems (See Mark 11:24)!  And when you receive the answer to your prayer you have great peace because you are resting in the assurance that you have the answer.  You don’t have to stress or worry or try and figure it all out anymore.

That’s what faith is all about—believing you have received before you see it.  If you’ve received Jesus Christ into your life you don’t physically see Jesus with you all the time but yet you know He is with you because He said so in His Word.  He said He’d never leave you or forsake you.  You’ve chosen to believe that and you can thank God for Jesus because you know you have received Him.  And by thanking Him you are really saying, ‘God I am so appreciative and grateful for You sending Jesus Christ to pay the price for my sin.  I can’t see Him but I know He’s with me because the Bible tells me so.  Thank you!’  It doesn’t matter if you see Him or if you ‘feel’ Him.  You know He’s with you because you have faith in God’s Word that says He is.  And the more you confess that the stronger your faith is.  This principal works the same way for all of the promises of God. Everything that God spoke is the same way.  We need to receive all of His Word by faith this same way.  This is the power of thankfulness.

"As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving." Colossians 2:6-7

The same way we have received Jesus Christ is the same way we should walk or live as a Christian.  We received Him not only by faith but with thanksgiving also.  And we need to continue to live by faith abounding with thanksgiving.  The more we grow as a Christian the more we should be learning about what Jesus has done for us and what the Word of God promises to us.  The more established we are in these things the stronger our faith will be and the greater our love and appreciation for Him will be.  And as a result we will be abounding with thanksgiving!  Many people are trying to express their love for God as an emotional thing.  You won’t be consistent if you do that and when the tough times come your ‘love’ for God goes out the window.  Your thankfulness is to be based on understanding how God has shown His love for you and responding to that in faith.

Thankfulness is so powerful because it is an expression of both your faith and your love towards God.  And we know that faith and love working together are a powerful force.  In fact faith works by love (Galatians 5:6).  And thankfulness is really the basis for worship.  We worship God not just because He’s great and because He’s the Supreme Being.  But we worship Him because He’s good and for that we are thankful and appreciative.  If God were mean and destructive and brought pain and turmoil to us would we want to worship Him?  I don’t think so.  What would we thank Him for?  Our desire to worship God grows stronger as our thankfulness to Him grows.  And our thankfulness to Him grows as we grow in our understanding of His goodness and His love.  How do we increase our understanding of God’s awesome character?  Through His Word.  We get to know Him through His Word.

There have been times that I’ve felt distant from the Lord and have tried to draw close to Him through worship but still felt that something was missing.  It wasn’t until I got into the Word and began to see His goodness through the revelation of the Word of God that my desire to worship and draw close to Him increased.  And the reason it increased was because His goodness became real to me once again.  My thankfulness to Him increased.  Don’t neglect your time in the Word and forget the goodness of God.  It’s the foundation for your understanding of God.  If you neglect it you run into the danger of basing your understanding of God on your emotions instead of the Word and that is not a solid foundation.

So why is thankfulness so powerful?  Because its an expression of your faith and love together.  It takes the expression of your faith to overcome in this life.  And thankfulness is the faith-filled expression of your love and appreciation to God who cares so much for you.  Begin to make it a practice to thank God all the time!

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