Skip to main content

Give Thanks, by Pastor Kevin Feder

By
Give Thanks

Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. Psalm 103:1-5

Psalm 103 is a psalm of thanksgiving. The reason why giving thanks and being thankful is so important is because it might be the single most distinctive characteristic of being a Christian. This is most plausible when we look at the way the atheist is described in Romans 1:21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. Thus, if the refusal to give thanks to God marks the atheist, giving thanks ought to mark the believer.
And for good reason. The believer, afterall, has good reason to give thanks to God. The believer has good reason and many reasons to give thanks to God. This seems simple enough, doesn’t it? Believers should be thankful. Not too much resistance there. Yet, most believers would admit that grumbling, complaining, worry, anger, doubt, anxiety, bitterness, apathy, to name a few, creep in and choke out thankfulness. What should a believer do to be more characterized by thankfulness and less like this list? Here are two responses:
First, being thankful means giving thanks, which means it is up to you to be thankful. You are not a passive recipient of thankfulness. Rather, you are active in pursuing it by faith. If you are a Christian, you have the Holy Spirit empowering you to walk by faith, you have God’s Word to speak truth to you, and you have God’s Son that gave his life for you so that you can be a child of God. You have everything you need to be a thankful person.
Second, being thankful means you must preach the truth to your soul. In Psalm 103 David preaches to his soul (Bless the LORD, O my soul). He doesn’t wait until he feels thankful. By faith, he presses the truth into his mind. Living by faith and being thankful is primarily not a feeling but the will to live in accordance with what is true. David models what this looks like. He preaches to his own heart. He rouses his emotions to the memory of God’s work. He refuses to be controlled by what he feels, he insists on living according to God’s love.

That we would be thankful people, Pastor Kevin




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

To Have My Soul Happy in the Lord, by George Muller

By Anonymous
To Have My Soul Happy in the Lord By George Muller “It has pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, the benefit of which I have not lost for more than fourteen years. The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, or how I might glorify the Lord, but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. “I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God—not prayer, but the Word of God. And here again, not the simple reading of the Word of God so that it only passes through my mind just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what I read, pondering over it, and applying it to my heart. To meditate on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed. And that thus,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Worship Songs, October 15, 2017

By
We post these worship songs leading up to the worship service so that parents may listen to them in the house or in the car within the days leading up to the worship service. Our hope is that children will hear the songs prior to and it will prepare them to participate in worship on Sunday mornings. My Redeemers Love Hope Has Come I Will Glory In My Redeemer Blessed Be Your Name Here In Your Presence Your Glory Be Still My Soul (In You I Rest) -- Sermon Text: John 11:1-16 That the next generation will set their hope in God and not forget the works of God (Psalm 78:7).
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations on the Glory of Christ: He Sits at the Right Hand of God

By
In Hebrews 1:2-4, the author makes seven claims about Jesus that when taken together greatly exalt his glory. The seventh claim the author makes about the Son is that, having made purification for sins, he now sits at the right hand of the Majesty on high. The words “he sat down” set the stage for chapter 7 where we’re taught that Jesus is both Priest and King. Prior to Jesus, no king offered his own sacrifices and no priest sat on the throne of David, for that wouldn’t be right. God had decreed that there should be a separation of powers between the priest and the king, but Jesus, unlike all before him, is worthy and able to fulfill both roles. So, on the one hand, Jesus sat down at the right hand of God after making purification for sins because the sacrifice he offered, namely himself, is sufficient. Other priests were always standing, as we see in chapter 10:11-14, because their work was never done. The blood of bulls and goats can never take away sins, so the priests could...
Post a Comment
Read more