Gratitude Guidelines

Don’t walk into Thanksgiving unprepared.  Plan ahead to focus on Jesus.  Now that may seem obvious, but there are a lot of ways our thanks can get off track.  Like if it’s merely horizontal:  you thank me, I thank you, we’re all grateful to each other.  To be sure, horiz­ontal gratitude is good, but Christian thanksgiving is so much more.

Or we can go off the rails by letting material things govern our gratitude:  thanks for food, clothes, jobs, health, homes, books, toys, etc.  Again, these are good things; it would be a shame not to be thankful for them.  But Christian thanksgiving is so much more.

1 Corinthians 15:57 can put us on the right track:  “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” In ch. 15 Paul is talking about death and resurrection.  Death will one day be defeated; it will lose its sting; we’ll shed our perishable bodies, put on the imperishable, and be fit for heaven!  In light of these immense, wonderful truths, here are three gratitude guidelines:

1. Thanks be to God. I’m sure the Pilgrims were thankful to the Indians who helped them farm, but it was thanks to God that pulsated in their hearts most deeply.  The fact that we can scoff at death, the fact that the grave has no hold on us…  thank God.
2. For Victory. Thank the Lord for conquering death for us.  We who trust in Jesus Christ—we have victory over death.  It’s true, unless Jesus comes back first, we’ll face physical death.  But it cannot defeat us; we’ll prevail over it in the end.  Thank God!
3. Through Christ. “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” The life we’ve received—that life which death can never threaten, your eternal life—was won for you by Christ; his death and his resurrection victory were for us (15:3).  So give credit where credit is due.  It wasn’t your skill or determination or smarts or money or morality…  Your victory over death has been achieved entirely by Jesus Christ!  So let glory of Christ shine in and through your 2020 Thanksgiving.