In just a few days, there will be an annual observance of thanks-giving in the United States. An official invitation to celebrate a day of thanks was issued at least twice during George Washington's administration; but it wasn't until 1863, when Abraham Lincoln issued his proclamation, that it became an annual remembrance. In it, he wrote that it seemed "fit and proper that [the gracious gifts and mercy of the Most High God] should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people." That proclamation, of course, was issued in the midst of a great civil war--a time of distress and concern; yet he pointed out a number of physical blessings they had even then.
There is nothing wrong with being thankful; in fact, there is everything right. And while the American people are not God's special people in the sense that some seem to think, yet we mustn't forget that He has allowed us to have all that we do have. Unfortunately, we do, whether as individuals or as a nation, have a tendency to forget the giver of all good things during good times. This is nothing unusual; Moses warned the children of Israel about this tendency in Deuteronomy 8, beginning verse 11: "Beware that you do not forget the LORD your God by not keeping His commandments and His ordinances and His statutes which I am commanding you today; otherwise, when you have eaten and are satisfied, and have built good houses and lived in them, and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." "Otherwise," he continued in verse 17, "you may say in your heart, 'My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth.'"
God has allowed us all that we have, and we ought not to forget that fact; so, it is right and proper to pray for peace and for the leadership of the country (1 Tim 2:1,2), and to thank the Lord for all the physical blessings that we have here on earth; but far more important than all these physical things are the spiritual blessings that He has offered us. Let's look at a few of them now...
One spiritual blessing we have is that we have been granted a means of knowing about God--which is to say, we have the scriptures. In Genesis, the Bible tells us of God's work in creation. In the books of Exodus through Joshua we see how He raised up the nation of Israel as His own special people for a special purpose: the Christ would come through them. In Judges, we see how they quickly turned away from God: a cycle of falling away, and then when times were tough, a calling for God--and we often do the same thing. Eventually, in the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, we see that they rejected God from ruling over them and ask for a King. Even so, they would repeatedly turn from God, and He would call them to repentance. Ultimately, though, they were taken away as a nation into captivity, and although the Christ would come through them, the time would come that they would no longer have that exclusive nature as Gods people--God's kingdom would be open to all.
It is through the scriptures that we come to know about the God of Heaven--His might, His love, and His mercy--and His will for us, how He would have us live. It is through the Bible that God reveals himself to man. In 1 Cor 2:11-13, Paul wrote, "For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. [You don't know what I'm thinking unless I tell you; how much more for God? And so he continues...] Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words." God has revealed himself to us through the writings of His apostles and prophets.
So, the first spiritual blessing we see this morning is that we have been granted a means of knowing about God through the scriptures.Another spiritual blessing that God has granted us that is often neglected is prayer. Where prayer is the means by which God speaks to us, prayer is our means of speaking to Him. There is a song that laments, "O, what peace we often forfeit; O, what needless pain we bear; All because we do not carry Ev'rything to God in prayer." We think of the book of Psalms as a book of Songs, and that is correct; however, it is also a book of prayers, in which David and others would pour their hearts out to God--they would offer praise and thanks; they would express their sorrows and desires.
How sad it is when the children of God don't exercise that privilege that God has granted them in speaking to Him We read in Colossians 4:2 the command, "Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving..." We are to devote ourselves to it--and that doesn't mean simply a mealtime prayer, although that isn't a bad idea. To devote yourself to something means to give yourself over entirely to it--and what a blessing it is to be able to speak to God in prayer! Just as we read in Philippians 4:6,7, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
A second spiritual blessing that we have been granted is a means of speaking to God--through prayer.
The scriptures don't simply reveal the God of Heaven to us, but they also tell us of the means that he has provided for us to be reconciled to Him--through His son. Why do we have scripture at all? Is it simply a history of the Jews? No; it was written for a purpose; so that it might bring about faith--more than that, though: an obedient faith. In Romans 1:5, Paul declared that it was through Jesus Christ that he had "received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of the faith..." in those to whom he wrote.
And what would be the outcome of that obedient faith? Later, also in the book of Romans but this time in 5:8-10, we read how "...God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." God has provided for us to be reconciled to Himself by the death of His son, Jesus the Christ; by His death, we are saved from the wrath of God and the consequences of sin, and by his life we are able to have life ourselves--eternal life, in Heaven. And that, my friends is our fourth spiritual blessing; but before we get to that, let's note that a third spiritual blessing that we have been granted is that we have a means of reconciliation to God--through Jesus' sacrifice.
The final spiritual blessing that we will consider this morning it that we have been granted a means of being with God--in that, when the time is right, as children of God, He will allow us to enter Heaven to be with Him forever. We read in 1 Thessalonians 4:16,17, that "...the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord." It is then that we will be allowed to dwell in that city that Abraham looked forward to; that "city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God" (Heb 11:10). What a blessing that is: to be granted a means of being with God forever--in Heaven.
You know, we should be thankful for all the physical blessings we have; yet, even if they were all taken away--if we lived in poverty as some Christians in Central America do; or if we lived under communist control as do Christians in China--we could still be as grateful as they are to know Christ, because no one, anywhere, at any time can take that away from us. Though some might try to supress God's word, as in the Dark Ages; though some might try to hinder our prayers, as they did the prophet Daniel's; though some might try to keep us in bondage to sin, as the Judaizing teachers tried to do to the Galatians; though some might try to keep us from our God by trying to convince us that He does not exist--in the end they cannot! Only we, as individuals, can separate ourselves from God.
Just as Paul, "...I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom 8:38,39) These are things we need to be thankful for; and not just one day a year--we need to thank our God every day of our lives.
