Giving Thanks This Thanksgiving

Psalm 9: 1 I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. (ESV)

This week we will all gather around our Thanksgiving Day tables and enjoy the feast set before us. A tradition primarily in the United States and Canada, Thanksgiving Day was set aside as a day to give thanks to God for all of His provision. So much for the theory that the people who settled this land did not believe in the one true God. The earliest recorded Thanksgiving Day actually pre-dates the generally accepted Plymouth Plantation feast. As far back as 1565 it actually goes. So, for the past 444 years Americans have paused to give thanks to God Almighty for the glorious provision He has made. Amen.

Our key verse for this Thanksgiving comes from King David in Psalm 9. There are essentially two parts. The first is that King David declares that he will give thanks to the Lord with his whole heart. David pours himself out to the Lord in praise as we see throughout the Psalms and his life. He holds nothing back from God in his praise unto Him. Perhaps we can read this opening line in Psalm 9 and gloss over it but it is important as we pause this Thanksgiving to seriously look at how we praise and why we praise God Almighty.

We are in a constant spiritual battle on this earth. The Bible tells us so. There is a Savior in Jesus Christ and there is an enemy in the devil. The world has done a masterful job of turning the devil into a caricature. A cartoonish fellow in a little red suit with a pitchfork. That is not however how God warns us about him:

You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. John 8: 44

The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 2Corinthians 4:4

But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 2Corinthians 11:3

Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 1Peter 5: 8

Do not underestimate the enemy you face beloved. He was a murderer from the beginning, the father of lies, blinder of the unbelievers, and a cunning lion on the prowl seeking someone to devour.

But praise be to God! He has provided us with divine weapons to use in our confrontations with the enemy:

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2Corinthians 10: 3-5

In a recent devotional I focused on the top offensive weapon, the Word of God and the top defensive weapon, prayer. But praise and thanksgiving unto God is also a powerful and mighty weapon God has given us. David understood this in the key verse above. What makes praise so powerful? For starters, it places the focus back onto God. The devil seeks to make us impotent for the kingdom of God. He knows he has lost the battle for your soul but he wants you crawling into heaven, bound and shackled for your walk here on earth. How did Jesus say our walk on earth was supposed to be?

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:10

In contrast to the enemy who only seeks to steal and kill in your life Jesus came to provide you with a full life; an abundant life. The enemy will seek to steal your progress in Christ, kill your joy, steal your passion and kill your hope. All of those things will deprive you of the full life Jesus said He came to give you! How many Christians do you know who are still so bound by the enemy and the lies this world sells? That is not God's design.

So how does the enemy seek to accomplish this? By getting your eyes off of Jesus. As long as you are looking at something other than God, the devil wins. We can find ourselves obsessed with our problems and take our eyes off of our problem solver. That is the scheme of the enemy and a powerful weapon to counteract that is praise unto the Lord. Praise will have you focusing on God instead of your problems and will remind you that He is above your problems.

When Peter stepped out of the boat his eyes were on Jesus and he walked on water. As soon as he took his eyes off of Jesus and onto his circumstances the storm and the waves he began to sink. That is us as well in our walks. The storm comes against us and we can walk on the water. We can walk above the storms that seem so threatening but only if we keep our eyes fixed on He who gives us the power to walk above our circumstances. Too often though the waves in our storm get too big and they begin to distract us. We take our eyes off of our problem solver and place them instead on our problem. And we begin to sink in the midst of our storm.

But God. Just singing praises to God alone can break that cycle and place your feet back on solid ground. Not only does praise get you to focus on God but it actually draws God unto you:

But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel. Psalm 22:3 (KJV)

God will inhabit your very praises! Praise and worship usher in His presence. How many of us quite frankly can use more of God's presence in our lives? Can we use His presence more in our marriages? Our finances? Our children? Our health? Then praise Him! Take your eyes off of your mountain and place them back on the one whom before the mountains melt like wax.

The second half of the key verse is part of what praise should be. David declares that he will recount all of the wonderful deeds of God. That is the heart of praise. David once faced a giant in his life. Goliath was nine feet tall and had every brave man of Israel cowering in fear. To them the giant they faced was bigger than the God they knew. When King Saul tells David he cannot possibly defeat the giant, here was his response:

But David said to Saul, "Your servant has been keeping his father's sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine." 1Samuel 17: 34-37

David recounts what God has already done for him to overcome what trial he is currently facing. That is the power of praise. When we face the giants in our lives that have us cowering in fear, we too need to recount all the wonderful deeds the Lord has done in our lives as well.

The enemy will try to get your focus off of God and onto your problems. That small hill soon becomes a mountain and we keep circling it. We become anxious and depressed by the mountain. We despair. In Paul's letter to the church at Philippi, he addresses this very plainly for us:

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4: 4-7

Let's be real. When we are facing the mountains in our lives, all we want is the peace of God. We want that assurance that no matter how bleak the desert may be that we will survive to see prosperity again. When the storms are raging we just want to be comforted that we will not drown. That is what the peace of God does. It guards our hearts and minds the two areas the enemy is constantly attacking in Christ Jesus. When we overemphasize our situation, God is minimized and that occurs within our hearts and minds. Our mind convinces us that our problems are too big for the problem solver and in our hearts, we despair.

And how do these verses tell us to seize this peace we so desperately need in our lives? First, by being anxious for nothing. That word is key NOTHING. There is nothing in this world worth being anxious about because we serve the God who created everything! Secondly, we are to present our requests to God in EVERYTHING. We are to hold nothing back beloved. God is concerned about the very minute details of your life. Remember, that mountain you now face was but a small hill at one point and if you could have submitted it to God then, it would not have grown into the mountain you see before you.

And what is the key for being anxious for nothing and presenting everything to God? By doing so with thanksgiving! It does not say rejoice in the Lord when you feel like it. It does not say rejoice in the Lord when things are going well. It says rejoice in the Lord ALWAYS. It is so obviously important to God that He had the Apostle Paul say it twice! "I will say it again: REJOICE!

And the lynchpin holding all of this together is that small line in the middle The Lord is near. That is why we can rejoice always. That is why we can make our requests know to Him with thanksgiving. That is why His peace is so readily available to us because He is near. He is the fourth man in the fiery furnace life throws us into. As David says, Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

That is the God we serve this Thanksgiving. It is the same God that the settlers served in 1565 when they paused to give thanks on the first Thanksgiving Day. The truth is that once you wrap your minds around how much God has done, you will give thanks to Him with your whole heart. You will joyfully recount all the wonderful deeds He has done. When that happens; EVERY day for you, will be Thanksgiving Day.

Reverend Anthony Wade Thanksgiving 2009