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Prayer and Thanksgiving

On this week of Thanksgiving, we continue our blog series on prayer from the acrostic A.C.T.S. This acrostic suggests that some of the good prayer topics for us include Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication. The idea is prayers of thanksgiving are great for the entire year.

If you search on the phrase “give thanks” (try www.biblegateway.org) you will find 62 verses in the English Standard Version which have this phrase. Of course, there are many other phrases which teach us to give thanks to God.  Here is one I like:

I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples; I will sing praises to you among the nations.

For your steadfast love is great to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.

Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!

(Ps. 57:9-11 ESV)

Thanksgiving in prayer has an object:  Our Father in Heaven. When we give thanks to Him in prayer we recognize his grace and generosity to us. We are acknowledging that “every good and perfect gift comes from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). We are not just thankful for the sake of thankfulness, or because it has some mental health benefits (it truly does, however!). We are acknowledging the truth of God’s goodness to us in so many ways.

Yes, please give great thanks to God this holiday season. He is good, and his steadfast love endures forever. Find ways to practice prayers of thanksgiving. The Lord’s prayer has thankfulness in it, so if you use that prayer as a model for healthy regular prayer, you will give thanks!

You will pray: Our Father in Heaven, Hallowed be your name! In that phrase you are asking God to make his own name revered. God, make the whole earth love and honor your name!  In requesting such a thing, we are praising Him and longing for the whole earth to revere God in all of His traits.

Not originally in the prayer our Lord Jesus taught us, the added phrase “for yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever, AMEN” is another place of thanksgiving in the Lord’s prayer as we pray it today. It is an addition, but it is a fully biblical addition to the Lord’s prayer.

Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all. (1 Chr. 29:11 ESV)

Praising and thanking God as you pray refreshes you from the inside out. It reminds you, as you go to make various requests of God, that you serve an almighty God who is very kind and good. Children are taught to pray, “God is great, God is good” before meals. Thanksgiving prayers remind us of these things. And if God truly is both great and good, then we his sons and daughters can bring any of our requests before Him with joyous confidence!

Inspired by a recent Sean Smith Facebook post, here is a closing pray of Thanksgiving:

O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.

Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.

So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands.

My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips,

when I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night;

or you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.

My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.

But those who seek to destroy my life shall go down into the depths of the earth;

they shall be given over to the power of the sword; they shall be a portion for jackals.

But the king shall rejoice in God; all who swear by him shall exult, for the mouths of liars will be stopped. (Ps. 63:1-11 ESV)

Have a great thanksgiving!

Don Ward

Don Ward

Senior Pastor

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