Be Thankful

Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations (Psalms 100:4–5, KJV).

True Thanksgiving

Most people do not realize thanksgiving isn’t just a holiday. Thanksgiving was birthed in the Kingdom of God long before the world comprehended the idea. The Psalmist noted thanksgiving was something that happens in our voice, hands, spirit, and our hearts—it’s something that we do in life. We extend thanksgiving to the King of king and Lord of lords; we lift up our voices and cry out to God.

Missing Thanksgiving

In order to understand true thanksgiving, we must understand what it’s not. There’s a story in Scripture that exemplifies the absence of thanksgiving. It’s found in I Samuel 25 and draws our focus to a man named Nabal.

Nabal was a wealthy man. While David was running from Saul, he and his soldiers came upon Nabal. David reached out to this man and enacted the law of hospitality—asking the man to help him and his men (I Samuel 25:5–8). But, Nabal refused and in essence demonstrated a lack of thanksgiving. Because of his unthankfulness, his heart turned to stone, he became paralyzed, and eventually died.

Thanksgiving Cannot Work in a Spirit of Scarcity

Nabal was too worried about his future than to pay attention to what God was trying to do in his present. He did not have a spirit of giving, thankfulness, or abundance—he acted in the exact opposite; in a spirit that did not come from God: the spirit of scarcity.

Scripture tells us God will supply our every need (Philippians 4:19) and is able to pour out abundant blessings in our lives (Ephesians 3:20). But, in everything God does, thanksgiving cannot do a complete work in us if we have a spirit of scarcity.

Thanksgiving works best when we can give to others not because of who they are or what they can do for us, but because of who God is and what God has done for us. When we freely give to others, it generates a spirit of thanksgiving in others (II Corinthians 9:11).

Thanksgiving Cannot Work Where There’s a Gratefulness Gap

Nabal missed the entire point of the blessings in his life. Instead of doing good unto David, he did evil (I Samuel 25:21). Nabal adopted a spirit of entitlement and believed he deserved everything he owned instead of realizing God placed wealth in his life to be passed onto someone else (I Samuel 25:11).

We must remember to be grateful for everything God has blessed us with. We are nothing and have nothing except for God’s provision in our lives. Paul warned Timothy in the last days people would have a spirit of entitlement—an absence of gratefulness. We need to let gratefulness and thankfulness to be dominate in our lives and flow from us as much as it flows to us.