Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
Worship the Lord with gladness;
come before Him with joyful songs.
Know that the Lord is God.
It is He who made us, and we are His;
we are His people, the sheep of His pasture.
Enter His gates with thanksgiving
and His courts with praise;
give thanks to Him and praise His name.
For the Lord is good and His love endures forever;
His faithfulness continues through all generations.
Psalm 100
Yes, we have much to be thankful for. We can all look around and see the many ways we’re blessed. But as God’s children, we have so much more. Right now we still most easily see with our eyes, but God knows that the temporary things of this life will leave us wanting, and so He continually invites us to see with our hearts.
“For we walk by faith, not by sight.” 2 Cor. 5:7 “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1
And what we do not yet see is all God is building for us, inside our hearts and souls, and inside His kingdom that is to come – our future and forever home with Him.
No matter what’s going on in our lives right now – the pain, the heartache, the sickness, the missing of our loved ones – by God’s Spirit we can choose to see with the eyes of our hearts all God has done, is doing, and will continue to do.
Through our struggles God draws near to us, and calls us to draw nearer to Him. He speaks to us in our pain; He loves us in our sickness, comforts us in our grief, and has filled us with a deep and lasting joy nothing can take way. Through it all He builds a powerful faith on the foundation of Christ that will bring us a future reward we can only dream of, for now. Those are the true blessings so easily overlooked, yet will bring us a future reward that will outshine anything we can see with our eyes.
We can join as one voice with our brothers and sisters in Christ and look up. Shout for joy to the Lord for His magnificent love He’s showered on us, for sending His Son to die in our place, for filling us with His Spirit to comfort us, minister to us, heal and restore us, lead us, give us wisdom and peace, and to give us gifts to use to bless the Body.
To preserve us until the day we see the Lord face to face, and to be filled with the hope that He’s prepared for us a home with Him where we will live in peace and safety with no end.
We can enter into worship with thanksgiving, not just for the things we see, but for the riches we have in Christ, both now and waiting for us.
God’s made us His own and called us His children, and we know that “every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” James 1:17
Nothing on earth compares to that, and for that we can truly give thanks.
What are you thankful for?