"Be Ye Thankful"

Colossians 3:15

Believers are men and woman suspended between blessings received and blessings promised. Everything we have experienced to date is God's blessing upon us. And everything we shall yet experience shall be the blessing of God upon us. Therefore, we ought always to be thankful to our great God (Eph. 5:20; Phil. 4:4-6; I Thess. 5:18).

In the midst of our most distressing circumstances, it is our greatest duty, greatest personal advantage and most God honoring act of faith to be thankful; not merely to give thanks, but to be thankful. Thanksgiving may come only from the roof of the mouth. Thankfulness is in the root of the heart. It is good to give thanks to God. But it is better to be thankful before God.

"Be ye thankful" for every temporal blessing you enjoy. Your life and being is the gift of God (Acts 17:24-28; Psa. 100:3-4). He made us, preserves us, determines the quality of life we enjoy and has set the bounds of our habitation. Every mercy we enjoy in our daily lives is the gift of God, and is to be received with thanksgiving (Gen. 32:10; I Tim. 4:4-5). "Blessed be the LORD, who daily loadeth us with benefits" (Psa. 68:19).

"Be ye thankful" for the blessed privilege of public worship (Psa. 122:1). How few there are in this world who are blessed of God with this privilege. Most people in this world have no place where they can assemble with God's saints, where they can regularly hear a man preach the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace in Christ, where they can come together with other saved sinners to worship God.

"Be ye thankful" for God's unspeakable gift, the Lord Jesus Christ (II Cor. 9:15). What amazing love, God has given Christ to us! With him, he has given us all things. Everything Christ earned by his obedience and enjoys in his glory as the God-man Mediator is ours in him by the gift of God! If I am truly thankful for God's great, unspeakable gift, I will consecrate my life entirely to him, diligently use the means of grace he has given me, zealously support his cause in this world, and seek to live for the praise, honor, and glory of Christ. As Matthew Henry wrote, "Thanksgiving is good, but thanks-living is better."

Don Fortner