I was recently struck by a couple of verses from Psalm 50. “Make thankfulness your sacrifice to God and keep the vows you made to the Most High. Then call on me when you are in trouble, and I will rescue you, and you will give me glory.” (Psalm 50: 14-15.)
The topic of thankfulness may be uppermost in people’s minds at the moment, particularly in the US where lavish family celebrations are being prepared. Perhaps for some it will be harder this year to set aside fears of political unrest and a global pandemic and concentrate on the good things in life, yet I am still convinced that if we begin naming things for which we can be thankful, we will quickly discover the list is still endless. We read in our verses from Psalm 50 about thankfulness as a sacrifice, meaning we shouldn’t let feelings of despair or worries for the future stop us being thankful. On the contrary, these are the situations when we need to spend even more time counting our blessings. When we do, I can guarantee our spirits will be lifted.
I pray that as we near the end of 2020, your faith isn’t floundering. Yes, it’s been a tough year, but we still serve a good and gracious God. His character doesn’t change, and that brings me more comfort now than ever. 2020 may not have been the best of years, and no one can promise us next year will be any better, but we have a solid rock to which we can cling. Nothing we have experienced took the Lord by surprise, and he is more than prepared for whatever will come next.
We were urged in our verses from Psalm 50 to call upon the Lord when we are in trouble, with the assurance that he will rescue us. The rescue may not include him sweeping all our problems away, but it will involve us being able to find shelter in the shadow of the almighty. (Psalm 91: 1.) The important thing is that we do not go back on the vows we made to the most high. (Psalm 50: 14.) The worst thing we can do now is get angry with God or turn away from him because the world around us is getting darker. After all, the Bible warns us these times are to come, and that our heavenly Father will give us everything we need to get through them for his glory.
As we sit and ponder our walk with the Lord, perhaps there is a temptation to feel a little jaded. We may consider all the things we’ve done in his service – the sacrifices we’ve made in his name and feel disappointed in our seeming lack of reward. Perhaps someone reading this has recently lost a loved one, either to the Coronavirus, cancer, or some other disease or accident. You may be thinking: “If that’s how God is going to reward my service, then I’m just not going to bother anymore.” Yet the plane truth is that we shouldn’t be serving our saviour for what we can get from him in return, but simply for who he is. The Christian walk is not a score card where we balance the things we give and sacrifice against the gifts of god. Believe me, if we tried, our column would always be embarrassingly short compared to his. Let’s remember that without him, we would have nothing. Are you living in a warm cosy home? That’s a gift from the Lord. Do you have loved ones gathered around your table? These people are part of your life because he preordained it to be so. The very air we breathe is perfectly designed by the Lord to give us just the right amount of oxygen. Any more or less, and we would die.
There is nothing we can give to the Lord that would impress him, because we would simply be giving back the gifts he’s lavished upon us. Psalm 50 continues with these words. “I have no complaint about your sacrifices or the burnt offerings you constantly offer. But I do not need the bulls from your barns or the goats from your pens. For all the animals of the forest are mine, and I own the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird on the mountains, and all the animals of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for all the world is mine and everything in it.” (Psalm 50: 8-13.)
I once heard a story about a church that was in financial distress. They called a prayer meeting and waited expectantly for God to meet their needs. One member quoted Psalm 50 verse 10 and requested that if the Lord owned the cattle on a thousand hills, could he please sell some of those animals. Much to their surprise, some time later a big burly farmer entered their meeting and handed over a large sum of money. Upon being asked, he said simply: “God just sold some of his cows.” Just imagine the thankfulness and celebration that followed. Most people would have seen those cows as belonging to the farmer, but he recognised that everything he had was on loan to him from God, and in helping to provide for the needs of the church, he was trusting Jesus to meet his own should they arise. The farmer was living a life of gratitude, holding loosely to what he’d been given and realising it had been entrusted to him to serve a higher purpose. He didn’t make a song and dance about his sacrifice, because in his mind, he was only sharing what God had given into his care.
I don’t think we can ever underestimate how important gratitude is to the Lord. Recall the account where Jesus healed ten lepers, yet only 9 came back to give thanks. (Luke 17: 11-19.) It was only to the one who returned that Jesus said these wonderful words: “Stand up and go. Your faith has healed you.” Luke 17: 19.) This man’s faith was expressed in his gratitude.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of trying to impress God. I know, because it’s something I’ve struggled with all my life. A people pleaser by nature, there’s no one I want to please more than my Saviour. Yet I have to be careful that in trying to please him, I don’t become legalistic, or start reeling off my list of achievements as a means of trying to show him what a good Christian I am. Deep down, I know none of my so-called good works will get me into heaven. My eternal place there has been reserved based on the precious shed blood of my Saviour, and nothing else.
There are some cultures in which people seek to go without and even punish themselves as a means of impressing God. They whip themselves mentally or physically and think the more they sacrifice the happier God will be. However, I feel they are headed down a dangerous path, as pride and legalism can often follow. Their relationship with their heavenly father can be reduced to a list of dos and don’ts rather than being based on love and gratitude for what Christ did for us on the cross. We’re back to the score cards we wrote about earlier.
When king David wrote his great Psalm of repentance after sleeping with another man’s wife and having her husband murdered as a coverup, he acknowledged: “The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.” (Psalm 51: 17.)
The plane truth is that the Lord could never love you more than he does right now, so if you’re struggling to enter into the spirit of Thanksgiving, let this truth be your starting point. Don’t presume you have to put on airs and graces or try and impress God by your good works or sacrifices. Just rest in gratitude for his matchless love. Praise him for the year that is ending, despite it being one of the most difficult many of us have ever experienced and look ahead with thanksgiving to whatever he has for us next. Our futures are safe in his hands.