Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 5:20
I was visiting my cousins one day when I was a youngster, and they invited me to stay for supper. As we sat down at the table and filled our plates, I hesitated as my cousins began to fork the food into their mouths. Not realizing the reason for my hesitation, one of the boys urged me to dig in, assuring me that the food was good. What I was waiting for was for someone to give thanks for the food. At our house, nobody took a bit of anything on the table until somebody prayed. And for the first time, as I watched my cousins eat, I realized that not everybody does that. The practice of Christians to bow their heads and give thanks for meals stands out in a world that rarely considers God’s provision for us. They don’t realize how much they have to be thankful for, but we should always be in a state of thankfulness because we have learned something of what we have to be thankful for.
A family was attending a particular church one Sunday when an announcement was made about another family who had given a significant offering in honour of their son who had been killed on the battlefield. On the way home, the wife suggested to her husband that they too should give a similar offering. His response was ‘Why? Our son wasn’t killed.’ She replied ‘Exactly! Isn’t that something to be very thankful for?’ That story reminds us that we have far more to be thankful for than we realize. Yes, as Christians, we are daily thankful for our salvation, and for all of the spiritual blessings that we have been brought into. We acknowledge God’s goodness in extending His grace to undeserving sinners. And we bow our heads and thank the Lord for our daily food. But is that all we have to be thankful for?
As you face the drudgery of cleaning up the dirty dishes from your latest meal, do you ever thank God for those dirty dishes? After all, they are a reminder that you just put more food into your stomach at one meal than most of humanity gets to eat all day. As you come to a near halt in slow and congested traffic, do you ever thank God for the slowdown? After all, at this speed, you are very unlikely to be injured in an accident. We often notice the annoyances and inconveniences that we encounter every day without recognizing that behind them is a God Who is actually taking very good care of us. Our text speaks about giving thanks for all things. But we usually just give thanks for the things that we can see are a blessing. But what about the things that are a blessing to us but we have not realized it yet. Think about it, you are a better person today because of lessons learned from some of the things that have caused you some pain and loss in the past. You didn’t like the pain and loss at the time. But they did you good. Did you ever thank the Lord for that?
We don’t know who or what God is going to use for our blessing. So we should be thankful for it all. – Jim MacIntosh
Here is the link to the video of this message: https://youtu.be/m4womxYPwVo