Give Thanks - Praying with the Church

Most people can find some things to be thankful for in prayer, and that is a good start. Praying with the Church through the ages can focus our eyes in new areas. This prayer comes from The Worship Sourcebook, and it focuses on the mighty acts of God in creation, providence, and salvation as bases for thanksgiving. I like that it also calls us to not merely give thanks, but also to respond with our lives.

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Almighty God, Father of all mercies,

we, your unworthy servants, give you humble thanks
for all your goodness and loving-kindness
to us and to all whom you have made.
We bless you for our creation, preservation,
and all the blessings of this life,
but above all for your immeasurable love
in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ,
for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.
And, we pray, give us such an awareness of your mercies
that with truly thankful hearts we may show forth your praise,
not only with our lips, but in our lives,
by giving up our selves to your service,
and by walking before you
in holiness and righteousness all our days,
through Jesus Christ, our Lord,
to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit,
be honor and glory throughout all ages.
Amen.

Give Thanks - Praying the Psalms

It is one thing to read a psalm; it is another to pray it in thanksgiving.

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Psalm 100

A psalm. For giving grateful praise.

¹ Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.

²      Worship the Lord with gladness;

come before him with joyful songs.

³ Know that the Lord is God.

It is he who made us, and we are his;

we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

⁴ Enter his gates with thanksgiving

and his courts with praise;

give thanks to him and praise his name.

⁵ For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;

his faithfulness continues through all generations.

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Psalm 107 is another great psalm of thanksgiving. The psalm tells the story of different groups of people who were distanced from God, but God brought them back. Note that the common refrain for each group is “Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for mankind.”

Do you find yourself described in one of the groups? Give thanks to the Lord. Could you write your own stanza for this psalm? Give thanks to the Lord. In all things – give thanks to the Lord!

Give Thanks - Mining the Catechism

The Heidelberg Catechism puts thanksgiving in some very meaningful contexts. Thanksgiving is founded on God’s providence, it is the reason we do good works, and it is the reason we pray.

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Q. 27 What do you understand
by the providence of God?

A. The almighty and ever present power of God¹

by which God upholds, as with his hand,

heaven and earth and all creatures,²

and so rules them that

leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and lean years,
food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty—³
all things, in fact, come to us not by chance⁴
but by his fatherly hand.⁵

¹ Jer. 23:23-24; Acts 17:24-28
² Heb. 1:3
³ Jer. 5:24; Acts 14:15-17/a>; John 9:3; Prov. 22:2
⁴ Prov. 16:33
⁵ Matt. 10:29

Q. 28  How does the knowledge
of God’s creation and providence help us?

A. We can be patient when things go against us,¹

thankful when things go well,²
and for the future we can have
good confidence in our faithful God and Father
that nothing in creation will separate us from his love.³
For all creatures are so completely in God’s hand that without his will
they can neither move nor be moved.⁴

¹ Job 1:21-22; James 1:3
² Deut. 8:10; 1 Thess. 5:18
³ Ps. 55:22; Rom. 5:3-5; 8:38-39
⁴ Job 1:12; 2:6; Prov. 21:1; Acts 17:24-28

Q. 86 Since we have been delivered
from our misery
by grace through Christ
without any merit of our own,
why then should we do good works?

A. Because Christ, having redeemed us by his blood,
is also restoring us by his Spirit into his image,

so that with our whole lives

we may show that we are thankful to God for his benefits,¹

so that he may be praised through us,²
so that we may be assured of our faith by its fruits,³
and so that by our godly living

our neighbors may be won over to Christ.⁴

¹ Rom. 6:13; 12:1-2; 1 Pet. 2:5-10
² Matt. 5:16; 1 Cor. 6:19-20
³ Matt. 7:17-18; Gal. 5:22-24; 2 Pet. 1:10-11
⁴ Matt. 5:14-16; Rom. 14:17-19; 1 Pet. 2:12; 3:1-2

Q. 116 Why do Christians need to pray?

A. Because prayer is the most important part

of the thankfulness God requires of us.¹

And also because God gives his grace and Holy Spirit
only to those who pray continually and groan inwardly,

asking God for these gifts and thanking God for them.²

¹ Ps. 50:14-15; 116:12-19; 1 Thess. 5:16-18
² Matt. 7:7-8; Luke 11:9-13

Give Thanks - Praying the Scriptures

Our praying can be enhanced when we pray using words from Scripture. These prayer segments are a small segment from the Thanksgiving section from Matthew Henry, Pray the Bible, available online at http://www.matthewhenry.org.

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We give thanks to you, O God; we give thanks to you, for your name is near. We recount your wondrous deeds. Psalm 75:1(ESV)

Let our souls bless the LORD, and let all that is within us bless his holy name; yes, let our souls bless the LORD and forget not all his benefits. Psalm 103:1-2(ESV)

We will praise the Lord, for it is good, it is pleasant, Psalm 92:1(ESV) and praise befits the upright; Psalm 33:1(ESV) yes, it is good to give thanks to the LORD, to sing praises to your name, O Most High; to declare your steadfast love in the morning and your faithfulness by night. Psalm 92:1-2(ESV)

When we look at the heavens, the work of your fingers, the sun, the moon, and the stars which you have set in place, Lord, what is man that you care for him? Psalm 8:3-4(ESV) For truly the light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun: Ecclesiastes 11:7(ESV) All glory be to the Father of light, James 1:17(ESV) who commands the morning and causes the dawn to know its place. Job 38:12(ESV)

You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that you may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread to strengthen his heart. Psalm 104:14-15(ESV)

You give to all life and breath and everything; Acts 17:25(ESV) and the earth, O LORD, is full of your steadfast love. Psalm 119:64(ESV)

You, Lord, have formed us for yourself, that we might declare your praise. Isaiah 43:21(ESV)

All our bones shall say, “O LORD, who is like you!” Psalm 35:10(ESV) For you keep the bones, and not one of them is broken. Psalm 34:20(ESV)

We lay down and sleep, for you, LORD, make us to dwell in safety. Psalm 3:5(ESV)

You have commanded your angels concerning us, to guard us in all our ways; to bear us up in their hands, lest we strike our foot against a stone. Psalm 91:11-12(ESV) And they are all ministering spirits, sent out to serve for the good of those who are to inherit salvation. Hebrews 1:14(ESV)

 You have richly provided us with everything to enjoy, 1 Timothy 6:17(ESV) and have brought plentifully into our hands. Job 12:6(KJV)

Many a time we have eaten and been filled, and have delighted ourselves in your great goodness. Nehemiah 9:25(ESV)

 When we have eaten and are full, we have reason to bless you for the good land that you have given us, Deuteronomy 8:10(ESV) a land which the eyes of the LORD our God are always upon, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. Deuteronomy 11:12(ESV)

O how wonderfully did the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appear! He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy: Titus 3:4-5(ESV) We had destroyed ourselves, but in you, and you only, was our help. Hosea 13:9(KJV)

That God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16(ESV)

Give Thanks - Preview

This week in our congregation we are focusing on giving thanks in prayer. Thanksgiving is central to who we are, and it is foundational in our relationship with God. We earn nothing on our own; everything is a gracious gift from God. When we take time to give thanks to God for specific blessings, we begin to understand how great God really is. Thanksgiving is not just a season; it is the backdrop of our lives. Let’s take time to give thanks where thanks is due.

“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.”

1 Chronicles16:34; Psalm 106:1; 107:1; 118:1, 29; 136:1

Forgiven to Love - Learning from Others

– from Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace? 89.

Why would God require of us an unnatural act that defies every primal instinct? What makes forgiveness so important that it becomes central to our faith? From my experience as an often-forgiven, sometimes-forgiving person, I can suggest several reasons. The first is theological…

…Theologically, the Gospels give a straightforward answer to why God asks us to forgive: because that is what God is like. When Jesus first gave the command, “Love your enemies,” he added this rationale: “…that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”

Anyone, said Jesus, can love friends and family: “Do not even pagans do that?” Sons and daughters of the Father are called to a higher law, in order to resemble the forgiving Father. We are called to be like God, to bear God’s family likeness.

Wrestling with the command to “love your enemies” while being persecuted under Nazi Germany, Dietrich Bonhoeffer finally concluded that it was this very quality of the “peculiar … the extraordinary, the unusual” that sets a Christian apart from others. Even as he worked to undermine the regime, he followed Jesus’ command to “Pray for those who persecute you.” Bonhoeffer wrote, 

Through the medium of prayer we go to our enemy, stand by his side, and plead for him to God. Jesus does not promise that when we bless our enemies and do good to them they will not despitefully use and persecute us. They certainly will. But not even that can hurt or overcome us, so long as we pray for them… We are doing vicariously for them what they cannot do for themselves.

Why did Bonhoeffer strive to love his enemies and pray for his persecutors? He had only one answer: “God loves his enemies – that is the glory of his love, as every follower of Jesus knows.” If God forgave our debts, how can we not do the same?

Forgiven to Love - Rooted in Scripture

Luke 7:36-50 was the text on Sunday. When we pray “forgive us our sins, as we also forgive those who sin against us,” we are recognizing the connection in prayer between being forgiven and forgiving.

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³⁶ When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. ³⁷ A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. ³⁸ As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.

³⁹ When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”

⁴⁰ Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”

“Tell me, teacher,” he said.

⁴¹ “Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. ⁴² Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”

⁴³ Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”

“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.

⁴⁴ Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. ⁴⁵ You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. ⁴⁶ You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. ⁴⁷ Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”

⁴⁸ Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

⁴⁹ The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”

⁵⁰ Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”