During the Thanksgiving
season we are encouraged to give thanks.
That is important because we ought to be people who are thanks givers. As we express our thankfulness to God we
usually do so by rehearsing a list of material blessings that we enjoy such as
food, health, clothes, church, friends, or family. All these are important blessings for which
we ought to be thankful. However, our
thanksgiving should be more than simply giving thanks for material items. The psalmist says, “Give thanks
to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever” (Psalm 106:1).
The
motivation and focus of thanksgiving should be God Himself just because He is
good. Goodness is the very nature of
God. In order to explain this goodness
the psalmist says, “His love
endures forever.” In
other words, the goodness of God has to do with the outpouring of His grace,
love, and mercy to you and me in our sin and our need. In spite of the fact that we don’t deserve to
be recipients of His goodness, we are. “God demonstrates
his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
Isn’t
that amazing? God’s goodness, through
His grace and love, is available to each of us in abundant measure and it is
there for us to personally receive. “For it is by
grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is
the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are Go’s workmanship, created in Christ
Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2;8-10). Let’s
thank God for our material blessings, but let’s also thank Him for being good
to us so we can possess and experience eternal life. “And this is
the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not
have the Son of God does not have life.
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of god so
that you may know that you have eternal life” (I John
5:11-13 ).
Have
you received God’s goodness? You can be
a recipient of that wonderful goodness by praying a simple pray of faith to
receive Jesus as your Savior. Do it
today and then make sure you give thanks to God because He is good.
