All things with thanksgiving

“The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods….”

Adding rules—ah, then we know what to do. Then we can do it. It tells us who is in and who is out. We know how to please God—just do A and B. We have control; we can pride ourselves in our self-righteousness.

“…which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer” (1 Tim. 4:1-5).

There is something more risky about giving thanks. Risky? Yes. It is not merely—“Thank you, Lord, for what I already have.” Certainly it is that. Yet it ventures beyond what we have and trusts him for the future. The psalmists would often thank God for the deliverance even before it yet appeared. In this innate expression of dependence, it grows our faith. We acknowledge our creatureliness. We acknowledge our dependence. When we voice it, we grow into it. When we speak thank you, we realize what we don’t say thanks for—thanksgiving reveals fears and ingratitude and refocuses us on the Truth. Our life is once again centered, as creatures, on the Creator who declared all things good. We love him the more we realize what he gives us.

Thanksgiving tears down idols in our hearts in two ways. First, when we recognize him as the Giver, we see past the gifts to him, and delight in him and his provision, hallowing him above the gifts. Secondly, each time we learn more deeply that we are not dependent on our idols—our careers, our daily food, our reputation, our money, our family, our security, whatever it may be—but we are dependent on him. What we cannot give thanks for, we keep in our own hands.

Thanksgiving is also praise then—glorifying Him as the Giver and recognizing our creaturely relationship with him.  There is something about himself that gives a deeper joy and satisfaction than any of his gifts.

“…You will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand” (Ps. 16:11b).

“Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you” (Ps. 63:3).

Martin Luther comments on Romans 1:18-23 the stages of perversion: “The first step of their idolatry is ingratitude: they were not thankful. So Satan showed himself ungrateful over against his Creator before he fell. Whoever enjoys God’s gifts as though he had not graciously received them, forgetting the Donor, will soon find himself filled with self-complacency.” Vanity is the second step, then blindness, and then total departure from God. He adds, “Oh, how great an evil ingratitude is! It produces desire for vain things, and this again produces blindness and blindness produces idolatry, and idolatry leads to a hold deluge of vices. Conversely, gratitude preserves love for God and so the heart remains attached to him and is enlightened. Filled with light, he worships only the living God…” (Martin Luther, Commentary on Romans).