GIVING THANKS

“And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him" (Col. 3:17 NKJV).

Giving thanks to God is an important part of the believer’s behavior. It is very fitting that Christians to respond to God out of gratitude for His marvelous grace extended to them.

Prominence of thanksgiving - Three times in three verses Paul mentioned thankfulness: “be thankful” (Col. 3:15), “sing... with grace (gratitude)” (v. 16), and “giving thanks to God the Father” (v. 17). This kind of lifestyle does not come out of a sense of duty, but out of gratitude to God the Father for all that Christ has done for us.

Praise in thanksgiving - Thanksgiving honors God; it praises God; it gives God credit for blessings. Failure to give thanks to God discredits and dishonors God. You will not behave like a believer if you do not honor God. It is incongruent (out of place) for a believer to not honor God.

Purpose in thanksgiving - Scripture teaches that one purpose of our salvation is to give thanks to God which honors Him. “Save us, O God of our salvation… to give thanks to Your holy name” (1 Chron. 16:35). “Save us, O Lord our God…to give thanks to Your holy name” (Psalm 106:47). Salvation is so that we will honor God.

Power in thanksgiving – One sure evidence of God’s power in our lives is thankfulness. Christians who are filled with the Holy Spirit will be joyful and thankful (Eph. 5:18-20). When we lose our joy, we start complaining and becoming critical. We should remember that every good gift comes from God (Jam. 1:17) and that He is ‘the Source, Support, and End of all things.’ The very breath in our mouths is the free gift of God.

Believers are not enslaved to rules about every word they speak or deed they do. Instead, they freely put themselves under the Lord’s guidance because they love him, have accepted His salvation, and live to glorify Him.

(Adapted from Butler Daily Bible Reading)

Soli Deo Gloria (To God Alone Be The Glory)

Quotation of the Week

“Thanksgiving is the vibration of the soul’s heart-strings under the soft touch of God’s benevolence!”

Anonymous

Word Study

Giving thanks

In Col. 1:12 we read, “Giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light” (NKJV).

Giving thanks is the Greek word eucharisteo (εὐχαριστέω = yoo-khar-is-teh'-o). It is made up of two words: “eu” which means good, well, kind and “charisteo” which means to give freely, bestow a favor, gratify. Primarily the word means to give thanks. The root charis has the basic meaning of to show someone a favor and hence to oblige. And because a favor deserves an obligation of thanks, the word developed the meaning to be thankful, hence to give thanks, return thanks. Charis has been incorporated by New Testament writers into Christian thinking and has taken on the special meaning of grace, God’s gracious favor toward His own.

Originally, eucharisteo meant “do a good turn to” or “oblige,” and in late Greek passed readily into the meaning “be grateful,” “give thanks”. Giving thanks is the quality of being grateful, with the implication of also having appropriate (Spirit filled) attitude. The thankful saint is one who is conscious of benefits they have received

Prophecies Fulfilled by Jesus

Old Testament Prophecy – Messiah would be called “out of Egypt.” (Hosea 11:1)

New Testament Fulfillment – Matt. 2:15

Bible Facts

Cain’s wife discovered (Gen. 5:4). Skeptics point out that Cain had no one to marry - therefore the Bible must be false. However, the Bible states plainly that Adam and Eve had other sons and daughters – “After he begot Seth, the days of Adam were eight hundred years; and he had sons and daughters.” Cain married his sister.

Bible Quiz

Who said that un-thankfulness would be a sign of the “last days?”

**Answer to last week’s trivia: What did the different parts of the statue in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream represent? Kingdoms (Dan. 2:39).

That’s in the Bible

"Cast your pearls before swine”

“Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces” (Matt. 7:6 NKJV).

“Cast your pearls before swine” carries the idea of offering something to someone who don’t appreciate it. Pigs and dogs were considered unclean animals (Prov. 26:11; 2 Peter 2:22), which had no appreciation for valuable things (Prov. 11:22). Pigs typically ate the vilest foods, and dogs were scavengers, consuming even human blood. Stray dogs were known to growl at those who tossed them food as well as those who ignored them. As God’s people, we are privileged to handle the “holy things” of the Lord. He has entrusted to us the precious truths of the Word of God (2 Cor. 4:7), and we must regard them carefully. While it is true that we must carry the Gospel “to every creature” (Mark 16:15), it is also true that we must not cheapen the Gospel by a ministry that lacks discernment.

Did You Know – Christian History

Henry Alford was born October 7, 1810 in London, England. He was an English churchman, theologian, textual critic, scholar, poet, hymnodist, and writer. As a boy, Alford was ahead of his time. By age ten, he had written several Latin odes (lyric poems), a history of the Jews and a series of homiletic outlines.

To the person in the pew, Henry Alford is best known as the author of the Thanksgiving hymn “Come Ye Thankful People Come.” Among scholars, he is better known for his commentary on the Greek New Testament, on which he labored for eighteen years. One of his major undertakings was a series of Sunday afternoon sermons in which he taught through books of the Bible, explaining their meaning. He had a knack for explaining things in a way the simple people could understand.

Alford was also a talented artist and had abundant musical and mechanical talent. Besides editing the works of John Donne, he published several volumes of his own verse: The School of the Heart (1835), The Abbot of Muchelnaye (1841), The Greek Testament, The Four Gospels (1849), and several hymns, of which the best-known are “Forward! Be Our Watchword,” “Come, Ye Thankful People, Come,” and “Ten Thousand Times Ten Thousand.” He also translated Homer’s Odyssey, wrote a well-known manual of idiom, A Plea for the Queen’s English (1863), and was the first editor of the Contemporary Review (1866–1870). Alford died rather unexpectedly in 1871.

A Little Humor

As an early Christmas present, a man gets a talking parrot from his friend. He takes the parrot home and puts it in his living room. But every time the man goes near the living room, he hears the parrot shouting insults at him. In desperation, he puts the parrot in the freezer. After a few minutes, the insults stop. Thinking he might have killed the parrot, he takes it out of the freezer. The parrot is still alive, but it is shivering. It stammers, “I’m s-sorry for b-b-being s-so rude. P-p-please forgive m-me.” So the man forgives him. After a while the parrot asks, “What exactly did the turkey do?”

Thought Provoking Church Sign

“There are no losers with Christ and no winners with the devil!”