The Glory of Thanksgiving: Always and For Everything

“give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
1 Thessalonians 5:18 ESV

“Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”
Ephesians 5:19-20 ESV

Introduction

I always try to take special note of the all-encompassing words in Scripture like “all, every, never, nothing” etc. I try to wrap my mind around all the possibilities of circumstances this includes. In the case of the Christians in the time period when this was written, this would include harsh and brutal applications. Are you being tortured? Give thanks. Are you abandoned by your family for your faith? Give thanks. In a counseling setting there are some common applications. Going through a rough break up? Give thanks. Lose your job? Give thanks. Lose a loved one? Give thanks. Now, notice that this is not the only command we have concerning these events in the Bible. 

In and During God’s Will

1 Thessalonians 5:18 is astounding. It gives the humanly impossible command, and then follows it up with a striking statement about this being God’s will for us. We can be confident that God will teach us to be thankful. Later, in 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 Paul declares, “Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.” This is not a command that God is giving as a cold and distant drill sergeant. God has compassion for us, as he experienced sorrow here on Earth. His compassion is not only for us when we have a trial presented to us that we feel wasn’t brought on by our own sin, but he has compassion even when we hit rock bottom by our own doing (Psalm 107:10-16, Psalm 41:4-13). I highly suggest reading the two previous linked passages from the Psalms. They tell glorious stories of God’s great compassion in our failures and using them for our deliverance. Without sin, Jesus was still a “man of sorrows.” (Isaiah 53:3) He was well acquainted with our trials and temptations (Matthew 4:1-11), and he experienced the hardships we do with perfect faith (Hebrews 4:14-16). He cried, as we often do during the times most difficult to be thankful (John 11:35). Yet He did it. He is our righteousness and He will do this in us.

So giving thanks in all circumstances doesn’t imply that we need to have the appearance of that deflated balloon in the picture above, with a painted smile as we lay in the muddy street of our troubles. We understand that we experience hardship that feels like it is far too much to bear. I want to encourage you that they are not too much to bear, because we are “surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1) from the history of God’s people recorded in the Bible, some named and some unnamed, who endured the same trials with thanksgiving. The ultimate type of a sacrifice of thanksgiving is “Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2) Our circumstances don’t need to be ignored. They need to be seen for what they really are. They are a pathway, hand-picked for us, to the joy set before us.

For All Things

One of my favorite passages concerning the full spectrum of experiences that we are able to give thanks in and for, is Hebrews 11:35. It is describing those who by faith passed into glory and experienced shadows of promise that were fulfilled in Christ. It says “Women received back their dead by resurrection; and others were tortured, not accepting their release, so that they might obtain a better resurrection.” Receiving back a loved one from the dead is probably the most joyful and naturally thanksgiving producing experience I can imagine. It immediately switches, almost comically, to the worst word we have for our experience on earth, “torture”. So some were blessed with gifts, others were given the gift of torture. This second group refused release. This is perhaps the best example of Romans 5:1-5 I find in the Bible, before they even knew the fulfillment of the promises in Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I want to put the full text here so we can see how much these two line up. “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance;  and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” I am associating the word “exulting” with thanksgiving.

We are glorying through thanksgiving for grace and glory given to us directly as we look forward in hope to what will come. We have received Jesus back from the dead. Not only are we overflowing with the glory of thanksgiving in the glory we see, but we glory in the hope of our future glory and the things unseen, as the saints of old did in refusing their release to obtain a better resurrection. “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

Foreshadowing Our Future

Some, like myself at times, may read about thanksgiving and have a preconceived notion that it’s a chore. It seems like work to have to put an immediate end to my natural heart posture of focusing on the things that I dislike about my present moment, past, or future, and redirect it towards the opposite attitude of gratitude. It seems like we have to disregard reality to pretend things are good in our lives. This returns to a similar point made in previous posts. If we see our circumstances from God’s perspective, we will echo the psalmist “I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds." (Psalm 9:1) We will do it with a whole heart. We will know fully Psalm 33:4 of Chirst, “For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness.”