Grace Bible Church
Tree of Life
A Weekly Review
Week ending 120113
Biblical Thanksgiving
As we continued our study of the Christian soldier, we looked at the subject of Thanksgiving or being thankful. A much overlooked doctrine.
We started with LUK 17:11-14, And it came about while He was on the way to Jerusalem, that He was passing between Samaria and Galilee. And ten leprous men stood at a distance saying, Jesus have mercy on us! And He saw them and said, Go and show yourselves to the priests. And it came about that as they were going, they were cleansed. One of them turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at His feet, giving thanksto Him. And he was a Samaritan. And Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine‑‑where are they? Was no one found except this foreigner? And He said to him, “Rise, and go your way; your faith has made you well.
Our Lord comes upon these 10 who were all social outcasts who were basically just waiting to die from the disease. And we see the grace and compassion of our Lord to them. He doesn’t want to take credit at all, He simply tells them to go to the priest who would check them out and declare them clean. They would then enter back to the normal society. We would think that all 10 would have hurried back and fallen at our Lord’s feet and lifted up their voices in thanksgiving and say we will follow you from now on.
The sad reality is that nine of them, though they were healed, went on their way to the priests and then we never hear of them again which would indicate they thought nothing of the grace of God.They had all obtained a great blessing, but only one, a Samaritan, returned to express thanks. The Lord had a few incidents with the Samaritans, the woman at the well, this Samaritan undoubtedly went back to tell the rest of the people of the event just like the woman at the well did. They both testified of the Messiah, Yet in the end many of them rejected Him.
The point is that the world is…for the most part…void of thankfulness and full of thanklessness regarding God! And what a time to bring that principle to the forefront. During this time when we gather with family. It’s a great time, and a time we need to be reminded to be thankful for God’s grace and gifts. The problem is that there are more who pray to God for their own selfish gain than there are who praise God for what they already have. Here is the perfect example: ten were healed, only one glorifying and thanking God. The question the Lord asks is haunting: Where are the nine? Several analogies can be gleaned from this.The first that came to mind was that we pray for a specific things and God comes through, but do we spend as much time praising and thanking Him for coming through as we did in praying for that thing.I wonder if any of the 10 lepers had prayed to be healed…the fact that they call Him master would indicate the did, and yet then once healed well we know that 9 failed to be thankful to Him.There is more praying than there is praise in the world. But they should go together, prayer and praise. You see, God does hear our prayers, and He should also be hearing our praise our thankfulness.
1TI 4:4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, if it is received with gratitude, thankfulness;
It is sad that despite all of God’s grace and all of God’s goodness that is all around us, what we see most in the world is the ungratefulness of man. Unbelievers…well they exhibit the ultimate in ungratefulness having been offered the greatest of all gifts and yet reject it. Many believers forget what God has done for them. Giving them freedom and salvation.
God warned Israel about the danger of forgetting the Lord as the source of their freedom and salvation.
DEU 6:12, watch yourself, lest you forget the Lord who brought you from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
How true is that for us the CA, it is analogous to us being delivered from Egypt the world and slavery to sin. If we forget that it is the Lord who delivered us, and that all we have came from Him, we can get implacable, and we get ungrateful, and we let fear take over and we think what we need is what others have; we think what we need is more material things. The problem is that is putting faith in the wrong thing, in the material world, in treasures on earth.
MAT 6:19-21, Do not lay up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
So Thanksgiving is to be the daily act of rendering gratitude to God. Giving thanks should be the normal mental attitude of the royal family.
EPH 5:20, always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father;
PSA 100:4, Enter His gates with thanksgiving, {And} His courts with praise.
You must have doctrine in the soul before you can have the mental attitude of thanksgiving. Being thankful is huge weapon in the battle we are in. You see some of the equipment we use the breastplate, the shield, are defense against the enemy, the sword of truth is both offense and defense and thankfulness is also a weapon in the battle.
The Bible has a lot to say about being thankful. In fact if we are thankful in everything that we do and have, many of our problems would go away because we could boldly walk through the problems. And nothing frustrates Satan and the KOD more than us being thankful. Being thankful was a commandment Paul issued in to the Thessalonians and the Colossians.
1TH 5:18, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
Col 3:17, Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.
To really do this one must be at least at the SA stage, and probably truly can onlybe done by a mature believer.
Because it is more than a forced thing where we just say we are thankful, it is a true stage of spirituality to be thankful in all things.The trials and tribulations of life are many but a mature believer knows that Jesus Christ has overcome the world in JOH 16:33, and if we truly trust Him then we are thankful for all…all…all, things.
It’s a simple concept, but hard to do.
So, we are to learn to go through the fears, tribulations, trials of life using the spiritual equipment and thankfulness is a part of that equipment. Try it!!.
In EXO 14:10, As Pharaoh drew near, the sons of Israel looked, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they became very frightened; so the sons of Israel cried out to the Lord. They had seen the power of God, the 10 plagues in their deliverance from Egypt, but they failed to concentrate on what they had learned and allowed fear and panic to control their soul.
So, they were not able to remain thankful, and thus were not spiritually strong enough to pick up and use the shield of faith. They expressed their fear rather than their faith and thankfulness. You see faith and thankfulness go together.
We too will live like slaves unless we learn to become mentally stabile under pressure. And that ties in with faith and thankfulness.
PSA 46:10, Be still and know that I am God; ROM 8:31, What then shall we say to these things? If God for us, who against us?
You see that’s the whole concept of the faith rest drill. The FRD is all about thankfulness and praise.
It is all by His grace, the Lord fights our battles. He already fought and won the greatest battle ever that against our sin, And for that alone we should be forever thankful.