Eternal Thanks

 

READ Colossians 1–4

Today is Canadian Thanksgiving. While many will give thanks for home, family, and a turkey dinner, my thoughts this morning are on the words of thanksgiving in the NT book of Colossians. They are focused on what God has done for me, eternal blessings for which I am eternally grateful. First, thanks for other Christians . . .

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven . . . (Colossians 1:3–5)

Yesterday’s conversations with God’s people mutually encouraged our faith, our love for one another, and directed our minds to the power and care of God. We are thankful for that, just as these verses say we should be for His deliverance and our redemption:

. . . Walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins . . . . And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him . . . . (1:10–14; 21–22)

This passage makes me wonder about Thanksgiving in the lives of those who do not know God or have rejected Him, not so much what they are thankful for but who are they thanking? In their minds, where have all their blessings originated? We who believe in God and have been blessed with His great salvation have reasons for thanksgiving that are unknown to many. We know, because we have “received Christ Jesus the Lord” that we can “walk in him, (be) rooted and built up in him and (are) established in the faith” and therefore can be “abounding in thanksgiving.” (2:6–7)

Yes, I was “dead in my trespasses” yet “God made (me) alive together with him, having forgiven (me) all (my) trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against (me) with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.” (2:13–14) I have the most awesome reasons for being thankful! Because of Jesus, I can:

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. (Colossians 3:12–15)

And because of Jesus, I can also “Let the word of Christ dwell in (me) richly” as can all believers, “teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever (we) do, in word or deed, (we can) do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (3:16–17)

Finally, this reading tells me to, “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for (other Christians), that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ . . . that (we) may make it clear, which is how (we) ought to speak.” (4:2–4)

Today, this is how I want to speak and act around that dinner table. Yes, to be thankful for our material blessings, but also for the grace of God that has blessed me with eternal life through the knowledge of Him, our incredible Joy!