God has given us an invitation that is pregnant and powerful! It is a call to be thankful and to praise God, for He alone has an eternal Kingdom and He is forever the eternal King! When we live thankful, it affects others as well as us personally.
In a state of joy and thanksgiving we can live even when the worst of things seem to be happening all around us. Our identity and future are not hinged on what this temporary world is providing at the moment or is potentially able to provide. It is not based on the hope of things here and now. Our thankfulness and praise are possible because of a truth that God will supplant anything this world now knows – as Christians, we are members of a Kingdom that can not possibly fail, and a King Who will never be overthrown!
Yes, we are faced with nightmares on planet earth. But, in the middle of crisis can be a calm because our praise is based on the fact that His Kingdom is never failing and that we are members of that Kingdom forever. We are presently receiving from our generous Creator blessings that we are totally unaware of most of the time. We probably will never know, this side of eternity, the “almosts” of life! “We almost had a wreck!” “I almost broke my neck!” “Our home almost burned down!” You have your own stories as well – including it now!
Many people are spending a lot of energy trying to run away from their past, but it seems to always catch up with them! We are Children of the Lord running toward our future! Our promises are so outlandish that we have a difficult time believing they can be real – but they are! Even when things here and now are not so good, if our kingdoms here seem to be collapsing and failing, we as Believers have a solid future! We believe in the tomorrow where much more great things are being readied for us!
The promise of eternal life with Christ is the truth that enables saints of all times to endure unbelievable things. They were never focused only on the here and now. Many have forgotten the “Blessed Hope” of the soon coming of Jesus! The measure of our confidence in God’s promise of the future will determine the measure of our ability to endure the present day difficulties. Each time the nation of Israel lost sight of God’s future promises, they wanted to go back to slavery and moved to the the nation of “Complain!”
What is so different about us? We get angry with God for the current conditions of this life, we feel cheated, we feel lied to, we feel like the story of God is only a glorified story of Santa! If our confidence and hope is not on the stuff of the here and now, then our faith can never be shaken. Our faith is the foundation of our hope, of our praise, and of our trust in God.
The failure to be thankful and praise God is a good and accurate indicator that we have not taken seriously the future realities and promises of God. Either we can not believe them, or we are not reflecting on them and grasping them correctly. Thankfulness and praise should be the “natural” outflow from the heart that is confident about the privileges of being sons and daughters of the Most High God! We are a very privileged people with the opportunity to live in the exalted status of being a King’s Kid!
As Christians, we have great promises, great permanence, and great privilege which should lead us to a great praise. The only way to acceptably approach the throne of grace is with praise. We often feel that we have proper reasons to complain, but it is only proper when we take our eyes off our prize!
No matter what the kingdoms of the world do, how many of them collapse, how many kings rule over them – our future is not dependent on these current kingdoms and kings. Our hope is built on the sure promises of the true King of kings, who will never cease to ruling. When we are in a personal relationship with such a King, we have the promise that this world is not our home – it is only the place where we prepare to live eternally with our King!
What right do we have to gripe and complain about our present circumstances? We are to remember that our promise is bigger and even more realistic than where we are presently living and what we are presently enduring.
I have been saying it for years that I can never be ready for Christmas and all its great celebrations until I have gone through Thanksgiving! Let us work on being thankful so our year-end celebrations will be enriched.
