"In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." (1 Thessalonians 5:18)
This is one of the most important commands in the Bible. On it depends all our peace, and the receiving of all the blessings which God has for us.
No matter if everything does not appear favorable, we are to give thanks therein. This, like all of God's commandments, is not an arbitrary rule for us to follow blindly, but is most reasonable when we consider it from the side of God.
Very often people think that they have nothing for which to be thankful. This is the greatest mistake in the world. Even professed Christians often give way to such thoughts. Of course if they were to give candid thought to the matter they could see enough to give thanks for under all circumstances.
But fortunately God has not left to us the task of searching out among the affairs of our lives those things for which we should be thankful. Here are the Divine directions: "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." (Ephesians 5:18-20)
So that instead of there ever not being anything for which we may return thanks, there is never anything for which we may not thank the Lord. Someone may say, "I don't see how this can be done; there are some things of which it is impossible to be thankful."
Not if one is a Christian. Someone will bring up to me some circumstance, and will ask, "How can I be thankful for that? What is there about that to be thankful for?"
I cannot answer those questions. You must take them to the Lord, and let Him answer them for you. It is not necessary for us to know everything. It is sufficient for us to know that:
• God knows all things;
• He knows the way that we take, and is leading us, if we yield to Him;
• He cares for us far more than we can care for ourselves; and
• He has all power to do the good for us that His love prompts Him to do.
If we know but one thing, and really know that, we may be thankful under all circumstances, and for all things. "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose." (Romans 8:28)
Some will ask, "How may we know that?"
We may know it because God says so. That is reason enough. We are not called upon to know how it can be, but only to know the fact. "But perhaps I am not one of them who love the Lord?"
You can settle that very easily. It is the easiest thing in the world to love God. But we must not think that we are to force ourselves to love Him. No; that which is easy does not require force; and where there is force there is never love. Force destroys love.
How may we love God? By thinking about Him. We cannot help loving things that are altogether lovely, if we but know them. God is love. He has shown His love for us in giving himself for us. "God commends His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)
Whosoever meditates upon this one thing, cannot fail to love God. "We love, because He first loved us." (1 John 4:19,RV)
Now if we love God we shall know that all things work together for our good. We shall know it because He says so; and if we love Him we shall believe Him. Mark, that it does not say that all things shall work together for our good, but that all things do work for good. We do not have to wait until some future time for the good, but we get it as we go along. Everything that comes to the Christian is good. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For your sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:35-39)
Well, then, if everything that comes to the Christian is good, and he knows that it is good, how can he help giving thanks? Wouldn't he be a surly fellow, who would complain all the time, while he was all the time receiving good things? It is not for us to ask, "How can any good come from this or that thing?"
We have nothing to do with that. God has taken on himself the task of making all things work out for good, and as long as He knows how to do it, and is able to do it, that should be enough for us.
But we may see this much, for the encouragement of our faith: Everything is in Christ. "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32)
Mark it "all things." Both the things that seem bad, and the things that seem to be good. All come to us in Christ, if we are only His. The devil seeks our destruction, but Christ has conquered him, and has power to turn the greatest curses that he would bring upon us into blessings. He can make the wrath of man to praise Him. See how He overruled the hatred of Joseph's brethren, and made it work out His own purposes. "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree; That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." (Galatians 3:13-14)
This one thing contains everything. The mystery of the cross has in it all other mysteries. It is by means of it that all things work together for our good. The law has for sinners only curses and death. But Christ receives in himself, on the cross, the curse of the law, and suffers the death that the law pronounces upon the ungodly, and, lo, to everyone who believes Christ, and through faith hides in Him, the law brings life and blessing.
In His body death is turned to life, and cursing is turned to blessing. Here is Divine alchemy, far surpassing the wildest dreams of the old philosophers. They thought to find a means whereby all metals could be turned into perishing gold; but in Christ everything is transmuted into the gold of the everlasting kingdom of God--into eternal life and glory.
In view of the cross, therefore, how plain becomes the exhortation and promises, "Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:6-7)
Thanksgiving must be a part of every prayer. Thanksgiving for what? Why, for all things, as we have already read. Thank God not only for blessings in the past, but for the blessings that you are about to receive. Thank Him for the things for which you are making supplication. Only on this condition are you sure of receiving anything. "Therefore I say unto you, What things soever you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you shall have them." (Mark 11:24) "How can we believe that we have the things, when we don't have them?"
We can't, and we are not expected to. But we are to believe that we have the things, because we have them in the very promises of God, which are the basis of our prayers.
If it were not for the promises of God, we could not pray at all. Prayer is simply coming to God with the promises He has made, and presenting them to Him, and claiming all that there is in them. The word of the Lord is a creative word. The things named is in the name. The substance of the thing promised is in the promise. When we take the promises in faith, then we have the things promised, and of course we can thank the Lord for them.
Faith is the appropriating of the words of God. When it is said that we cannot receive anything without faith, that means that we cannot receive anything unless we take it. But if we believe the promises of God, then we do have the things asked for, and our thanksgiving from the heart is the evidence of our faith. If we have not faith enough to thank God for the things asked for, we have not faith enough to take the things that God has promised.
If everyone would strictly follow the Divine injunction, to give thanks in everything and for everything, and in every prayer, there would be fewer lifeless prayers. Indeed there would not be any. There would be no talking at random in prayer. No one would dare ask for a thing for which he could not thank the Lord at the time, and that means that he would not dare ask for things for which there is no warrant in the word of the Lord.
We should ask only in accordance with His will, and then we should know that God hears us, and that we have the things desired. "And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask any thing according to His will, he hears us: And if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him." (1 John 5:14-15)
And then the peace of God, that passes all understanding would keep our hearts and minds.
"And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:7)
Peace would flow as a river, and we should be filled with righteousness, even as the waves fill the sea. "O that You had hearkened to my commandments! then had your peace been as a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea." (Isaiah 48:18)
One thing more: the good from thanksgiving is all to us. We do not thank the Lord for His benefit, but for our own salvation. Unthankfulness is the first step towards idolatry. The heathen became such, "Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful." (Romans 1:21)
Thankfulness must necessarily result from a recognition of God and of His goodness. No one can realize that: "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning," (James 1:17) without being deeply grateful to Him. Therefore whoever is not thankful, does not worship God. Unthankfulness arises from selfishness. The unthankful person is so because he is absorbed in himself, and worships self rather than God.
Let us beware, then, lest we, through unthankfulness, lose not only the blessings which God has for us, but even the knowledge of God himself. True worship consists not in making petitions to God, but in thanksgiving to God.--Present Truth, April 20, 1893.