Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever. (Psalm 118:1, NIV)
(Situation: A 12-year-old son will not eat his broccoli for dinner.)
Father: Son, there are a billion people in China who have had no food today. They would love to eat you broccoli as their entire meal today. You should be thankful for that food and not be wasteful, so eat your broccoli.
Son’s Spiteful Response: A billion people in China, Dad? Name one!
God teaches powerful lessons to his people through his Word, and recently the Holy Spirit illuminated the first verse of Psalm 118. He even allowed me to walk through an important round of golf with a tremendous spirit of thankfulness.
After God called me out of the façade of a nominal Christian life and saved me from the fruit of my meaningless self centered existence as a 19-year-old college student, I was blessed to have some spiritual mentors along the way. One of the men who discipled me suggested that a good way to do morning devotions was to read one chapter of Psalms, one chapter of Proverbs, and one chapter of the New Testament. While incorporating this technique last week, God spoke powerfully through his words, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.”
Growing up, we always hear that we should be thankful for what we have, and usually that is in comparison to those who are less fortunate. Like the situation above, though, thankfulness is often taught with a big serving of guilt. But from my experience, this type of guilt-driven thankfulness does not get at the heart of God’s idea of thankfulness. Where is the joy in negative thankfulness? Where is the heart of true thankfulness in thinking that we are blessed because we are not like those less fortunate? Where is the love of God in being appreciative that we are not like other people?
In Psalm 118:1, God directly points us to himself as the person our thankfulness should be directed toward. But the verse does not stop with just who we are thankful to; rather it continues with why. We are thankful to the Lord because he is good. What makes him good? His love endures forever.
Contrary to guilty thankfulness, biblical thankfulness is not centered downward, to those below us, but centered upward, to him above us. We are the lowly ones, the dirty ones, the sinful ones—and God is our champion who rescues us from condemnation. God’s love and mercy to us every day is indescribable. As we embrace this tremendous spirit of thankfulness towards our 100-percent righteous, pure, loving God, an overwhelming peace flows through our spirit.
May we strive today, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to humbly walk in positive thankfulness towards the one whose love is everlasting—God, revealed to us through the person of his Son, Jesus Christ!
—
Korky Kemp
June 25, 2012
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