(Several years ago, we did 63 days of prayer at our church. One of the Wednesday evenings, I was asked to speak about prayer of thanksgiving. I decided to share those words with you this Thanksgiving week.)

1 Thessalonians 5:18 tells us, “Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

Psalm 92:1-2 “It is good to give thanks to the Lord, And to sing praises to your name, O Most High; to declare your loving kindness in the morning and your faithfulness every night.”

1 Chronicles 16:34 “Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!”

If for no other reason, we should give thanks to God, because the Bible tell us to.

Now I must admit, I wondered, “What is the difference between thanking God and praising Him?”  I know I’m guilty of just combining the two.

To thank the Lord is to thank Him for the things that He’s done for us and provided for us.

When we praise the Lord, we praise Him for who He is and what He’s done, apart from what He’s done for us.

Thanksgiving is the act of giving thanks. It is the grateful acknowledgment of benefits or favors, especially to God.

Gratitude is the feeling of being thankful.

Gratitude is an attitude and thanksgiving is an act. Gratitude is experienced and thanksgiving is expressed. Therefore, it is possible to be grateful without giving thanks. I can also give thanks without gratitude. There is a difference between feeling grateful and expressing thanks.

In Luke 17, we see an example of this, in the story of the ten men healed of leprosy.

“Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border of Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, ‘Jesus, Master, have pity on us!’ When he saw them, he said, ‘Go, show yourselves to the priest.’ And as they went, they were cleansed.

One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan. Jesus asked, ‘Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return to give praise to God except this foreigner?’ Then he said to him, ‘Rise and go; your faith has made you well.’”

How many of those men do you think felt tremendous gratitude as they walked away from Jesus, and became completely healed of their incurable, disgusting, socially isolating disease? I would think all of them did. But how many came back, threw themselves at Jesus feet and thanked him? Just one.

As followers of Jesus, we have been given the gift of salvation and eternal life. We have been cleansed from a life of sin, guilt, shame and regret with the blood of Jesus righteousness.

We have much to be grateful for, so how often do we say thank you?

There are also all kinds of “small” things God does for us that I think we often forget to be thankful for, and maybe take for granted, until we don’t have them, or they are not working, like, we should be thankful we woke up this morning, that we have healthy strong bodies, which I know is easy to take for granted until it’s not working correctly. We should be thankful we have houses to live in, and vehicles to drive, and a job to go to. We should be thankful for family, and friends, and…and…and.

In my life, one of the things I am most thankful for is the transforming work that God did in my marriage, but really in me.

Early on, Dean and I weren’t doing bad, but we weren’t doing good either. I remember thinking, “God did not intend for two people who love him and are trying to serve him, to live like this.”

Yesterday, on my way to work, I heard the song Thrive. A line in the song says, “We know we were made for so much more than ordinary lives. It’s time for us to more than just survive, we were made to thrive.” I totally agree. God doesn’t want us to just survive, He made us to thrive, in Him.

And that thought brought me to the only place I knew to go my knees, in prayer. Philippians 4:6 tells us, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in EVERYTHING, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God.”

I believe God’s word to be true, so I was doing what it said. I decided to take everything to God, because I had found asking other people was not helping, and nagging Dean wasn’t making anyone happier. The verse says, “in EVERYTHING” meaning bring God; the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, the easy and the hard, the big and the small, from every aspect of your life.

We are told to do this “with thanksgiving.” For me that meant choosing to focus on the positives. God began to show me that I need to appreciate Dean, who he is and what he does for our family, and not just look at the things I thought he wasn’t doing right or how he wasn’t meeting my expectations.

One thing I like to do is read Christian writers. God has made a lot of people smarter than me and I can glean from their wisdom and understanding of God’s Word. One book that made a big difference, then, was The Power of a Praying Wife. In the introduction, aptly called “The Power,” in the third sentence Stormie says, “It’s laying down all power in and of yourself, and relying on God’s power to transform you, your husband, your circumstances, and your marriage.” Over time as I have laid down, and continue to lay down, myself, and rely on God, he has transformed my life.  He has radically transformed my perspective.

It didn’t happen overnight, and I am still a work in progress! But often as I bring my everything to God with thanksgiving, He has helped me to see what I did wrong in the situation, or how I could have loved more like Him, or reacted more like Him.

Another verse that helped me is Psalm 37:4, “Take delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” As I began to delight in God, who He is (praise) and what He has done in my life (thanksgiving). He changes me. He gives me His perspective and my desires started to become His desires. This is an ongoing process for me and to be honest some days I do much better than others. And with some people I do better than others.

When God helped me realize that I had to depend on Him for everything, and not expect anything from others, it dramatically changed my relationships with others. I chose to recognize God as my source of everything, and out of that came a huge thanksgiving and continual thanksgiving for the people in my life. God gives me His perspective as I spend time talking with Him and reading His Word.

When I consistently spend time with Him, I know His love for me, and I am able to appreciate and enjoy the people in my life without expecting them to meet a need only God can meet.

Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt… you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask in prayer” Matthew 21:21-22. I’ve experienced the power of God, when in faith I prayed, and He moved a mountain in my life. He can move mountains in your life too. For so long, I thought this verse was talking about a literal mountain, but God showed me it could be a mountain of regret, or a mountain of guilt, or a mountain of shame or financial or relational, or whatever. Bring your mountain, your everything, to God in prayer and petition with thanksgiving, believing that He will work.

I feel that Colossians 2:6-7, sums up what I am trying to say, “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.”

I hear this saying that once we receive Christ, we begin living in Him, building our foundation on Him; we will be strengthened in our faith and overflow with thanksgiving.

As followers of Christ, because of the healing and redemption we have been given, our lives should spill over with thanksgiving! As we bring everything to God in prayers of faith, as He moves mountains in our lives, we should overflow with thanksgiving!

I think a good example of this, in the Bible, is King David. King David’s faith was built on a foundation that started at a young age. He had experienced the faithfulness of God throughout his life. His life was filled with trials, challenges, joys, sorrows, and mistakes but he continued to trust God. And in the Psalm, we hear him regularly offer prayers of thanksgiving, and we can learn from his example.

Psalm 7:17 “I will give thanks to the Lord because of his righteousness and will sing praise to the name of the Lord Most High.” (NIV)

Psalm 28:7 “The Lord is my strength and shield. I trust him with all my heart. He helps me, and my heart is filled with joy. I burst out in songs of thanksgiving.” (NLT)

Psalm 75:1 “We thank you, O God! We give thanks because you are near.” (NIV)

Psalm 105:1 “Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim his greatness. Let the whole world know what he has done.” (NLT)

Psalm 106:1 “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever.” (NLT)

Psalm 118:21 “I thank you for answering my prayer and giving me victory!” (NLT)

As followers of Jesus, we are saved by grace and our hearts should be full of thanksgiving. Even on the most difficult days we can find reason to give thanks to God.

I often read Jesus Calling, a daily devotional, and my favorite entry is November 24. Jesus Calling is written as if God was talking to you. On that day, it says, “Thankfulness takes the sting out of adversity. That is why I have instructed you to give thanks for everything. There is an element of mystery in this transaction: You give Me thanks (regardless of your feelings), and I give you Joy (regardless of your circumstances). This is a spiritual act of obedience –at times, blind obedience. To people who don’t know Me intimately, it can seem irrational and even impossible to thank Me for heartrending hardships. Nonetheless, those who obey Me in this way are invariably blessed, even though difficulties remain.

Thankfulness opens your heart to My Presence and your mind to My thoughts. You may still be in the same place, with the same circumstances, but it is as if a light has been switched on, enabling you to see from My perspective. It is this Light of My Presence that removes the sting of adversity.”

I like how she calls it a mystery, because my human mind cannot comprehend it, but I’ve experienced it, so I know it works. I also like how she says, “It is a spiritual act of obedience –at times, blind obedience.” In the story in Luke 17 about the men healed from leprosy, Jesus told them to go, and I like how it says, “as they went, they were cleansed.” We must be obedient. Sometimes God calls us to something, and we act in obedience but then it seems that nothing goes right, or people don’t respond the way we think they should. It is in those moments we must choose to be thankful. We must choose to keep trusting God, and praying, asking Him to make my thought, His thoughts and my ways, His ways.

A good example of giving thanks in adversity, from the Bible, is Paul, who often wrote letters of encouragement with prayers and thanksgiving for the people he was writing to, while he was in prison.

Ephesians 1:15-16 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.”

Philippians 1:3-4 “I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy.”

In Paul’s letters, we hear him being thankful for the testimony of other believers….

Thankful for the love God gives us to share with others….

Thankful for the hope we have in Jesus Christ….

Thankful for the gospel, being preached here and all over the world….

Thankful for the faithful ministers God has given us….

Thankful for circumstances.

May we learn from His example and David’s.

May we practice, Philippians 4:6-7, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus,” bringing everything to God and experiencing His peace with surpasses our understanding.

I like to pray scripture back to God. I feel that there are lots of good examples of prayer in the New Testament that we can glean from so to close I’m going to share one of Paul’s prayers from Colossians chapter 1.

“We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints—the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel that has come to you.

All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as is has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God’s grace in all its truth. You learned it from Epaphrus, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.

For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.”

As we bring everything to God in prayer, let’s remember to be thankful!

Thankful for all the blessings God has given you.

Thankful for the people God has put in your life.

Thankful for the Holy Spirit working in our lives.

Thankful for how God is deepening your relationship with Him.

Amen.