Giving Thanks, the Believer’s Responsibility

“Give thanks to the Lord for He is good;

His faithful love endures forever.

And say: ‘Save us, God of our salvation;

gather us and rescue us from the nations

so that we may give thanks to your Holy Name

and rejoice in your praise.

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting.’”

1 Chronicles 16:34-36

 

Have you ever given serious thought as to why God would save you?  Why God in His infinite love would go to such extreme as sending His Only Son into this world to die on a cross to pay the price for your sin so that you might have a redeemed relationship with God and eternal life with Him?  First, our God is amazing.  Second, we cannot emphasize enough His love for you and me.  It is almost brazen to think that God loves me, but it is true.  He loved us enough that He took action to call us to Himself through the cleansing blood of Jesus.  Our response is belief, trust, worship, and obedience to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit into this glorious relationship we now have with God.

Indeed, we give thanks to the Lord for He is good, but from our text we get more insight into this truth.  We discover that we look to God for our salvation and for His gathering us and rescuing us from the nations for one very important and primary purpose – so that we may give thanks to His Holy Name and rejoice in His praise.

Here is the insight I think we must understand, we do not express thanksgiving to God just for what He has provided or done for us in living life.  Rather, we are to be a people gathered by His grace for giving thanks to God for our salvation among the nations that He has delivered us from.  God has saved us to Himself, our collective response is thanking God for His deliverance, proclaimed to the nations because He has rescued us from the nations.

Our nation has been unique in celebrating a day of giving thanks, yet our peril is to forget the God who brought rescue through salvation, and then through men of God founded a nation reliant upon Him.  People want to dismiss that provision of God, but we as believers must be people of gratitude and thanksgiving to God for His great salvation.

 

Father, we give thanks to your Holy name, for you have saved us!


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