Title: Thanksgiving is Worship/Psalm 50:23
Contents
Thanksgiving is Worship (1)
(Psalm 50:23)
Last time I said that the attitude of worshipers is to give thanks to God with joy and worship God with humility. Gratitude is not only the attitude of the worshiper, but also the content of worship. Worship is an act of giving to God in gratitude for His grace. So, of course, without thanksgiving, there is no worship. Gratitude is acknowledging that prayer, self-denial, bearing the cross, all godly practices, and worship are all God's grace.
Considering the fact that worship can only be offered by those who have faith, it can be said that faith and thanksgiving have one thing in common. A grateful person is a person who has faith. Such a person can be a true worshiper. He who is truly grateful not only fulfills man's supreme purpose, but in all things gives him the glory that goes to God. “He who offers sacrifices of thanksgiving glorifies me.” Yes. If worship is an act of glorifying God, so is thanksgiving.
what is gratitude
People think that gratitude is driven by conditions or circumstances. However, not all auditing conditions exist. Gratitude is a matter of attitude and values of the heart rather than conditions or circumstances. In other words, it depends on the personality of the individual. A humble person knows how to be grateful. However, a proud person cannot be thankful no matter how favorable conditions are. He who is not grateful has a personality problem.
In the freezing cold, a father and a son beggar sit on the overpass and beg. When passers-by toss coins into the tin in front of them, the beggar says, “Thank you.” I said hello. People are busy, so they just rush their steps and don't put money in. The son gets bored, picks up a coin from the bottom of the tin and drops it into the tin can. Every time that happens, the blind beggar says, “Thank you.”
A father and son, well-dressed and carrying large gift boxes, pass by, but do not see the beggar. “Dad, why don’t you help the poor?” the son asks. “Why didn’t you help?” Father asks. “It’s not even on TV. What?” My son responds without hesitation. Still, the beggar would drop coins as a joke and say “thank you” over and over again. This is a story that speaks well of what gratitude is. The beggar father thinks he has received it, so he says thank you. Conversely, a rich man passing by complains that they did not help each other. Gratitude is not a condition, it is an attitude of the heart and a character.
Recognizing that you have received what you have received is also gratitude. Gratitude is acknowledging that we have received the grace that God has bestowed on us in the past. If you don't admit it, you're arrogant. But if you admit it, it already turns into a heart of gratitude. Where gratitude disappears, self-pride blossoms. Such a person cannot be grateful. Those who acknowledge that their parents gave birth to them and raised them and took care of them despite the difficult circumstances, thank their parents. But those who do not acknowledge it complain. The same goes for God.
Although the people of the Corinthian church were given many gifts, they only boasted about themselves instead of giving thanks. As a result, the conflict did not end. [1 Corinthians 4:7] "Who has set you apart? What do you have that you did not receive? If you have received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?" . There is no one who knows how to be thankful for those who have forgotten their pride or the grace of God. Self-pride is about exposing yourself. Gratitude reveals God. Isn't the essence of worship revealing God and acknowledging that He is supreme? But how can we offer proper worship when we lift ourselves up?
What are the obstacles to gratitude
The obstacle to gratitude is yourself. The problem is not with the conditions, circumstances, or God, but with the person himself. Especially, because of their sins, they lose their gratitude. Before sinning, human beings were thankful to God. In other words, it was a worshiping being. However, because of their sins, they lost their gratitude and became a being without worship. Before Adam sinned, he told his wife, “She is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23). But after committing a sin, he blames all the sins on his wife. “The woman whom God gave to be with me, she gave me from that tree, and I ate it” (Genesis 3:12).
A person who sins is a dead person. An unregenerate person is a person without spiritual life. The Holy Spirit is not in the heart. Therefore, we cannot thank or worship God, who is the Spirit. The Bible speaks clearly about this. [Romans 8:7-9] “The mind set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to the law of God, nor can it do it. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. If the Spirit dwells, you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not of Christ.”
You must be born again in Christ. [Ephesians 2:5] “He made us alive together with Christ when we were dead in trespasses (by grace you have been saved)” If you are still in your sins, let alone give thanks, you cannot worship God. The obstacle to gratitude is sin. Gratitude is a person's heart and personality, but it is a sin to prevent us from acknowledging and giving thanks to God. So, sin causes worship to be lost. It is a loss of purpose in life.
What Happens If You Lose Your Gratitude
[Romans 1:21-23] says: “When they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks, but became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. .” Human beings who have sinned no longer glorify God or give thanks to God. This means that worship is lost. So, he became a being that had nothing to do with God. People who were supposed to worship God came to worship idols.
People who have sinned lose gratitude and do not do what they ought to do, and do what they ought not to do. We do not worship the God we ought to serve, and we worship the idols we ought not to serve. What a man should do before God is to glorify and give thanks to God. Worship is the duty of human beings. But sinful humans do the opposite.
Before sinning, people were worshipers of God. However, after sin, man became an idol worshiper. So, always, a person is someone who worships something. The only difference is who the target is. If you change the word again, before you sin, think of your life as God's grace and give thanks to God. But after committing a sin, he thinks that it is his fault that things went well, and he brags about himself.
Dear saints!
Those who fail to worship are always self-reliant. Those who fail to find grace and fail to give thanks to God lift themselves up. So, worship and thanksgiving are the same thing. Everyone! Do you have deep gratitude for God in your heart? If so, then you are worshiping. But no thanks? If so, you are worshiping yourself now. Repent of your sins and restore the original sacrifice of thanksgiving made by God. Please give thanks to God, who should give back, not yourself. Hallelujah!