"Be ye thankful" (Col. 3:15). When you find one professing to be a Christian yet having no spirit
of praise and thanksgiving, you have to conclude either that the person is not a believer at all, or
that he has made little progress. Thanksgiving to God is spoken of more than 125 times in the
Bible, and we cannot obey His Word without giving of thanks. Christian life is largely devoted
to prayer and thanksgiving, if it is what it should be. We might go so far as to say that if a person
is a real Christian, prayer and thanksgiving will certainly form a part of the life. The Christian
loves prayer, loves to thank God for the blessings received. Cold, hard duty has nothing to do
with thanking the One we love more than all else for what He has given and is giving to us.

Thanksgiving is a sure sign of happiness. The Christian is happy because he has salvation from
sin, has the presence and guidance of Christ, and has the Spirit of God dwelling within. When you
think of what it means to have Christ dwelling within, you do not wonder at the words, "I have
Christ, what want I more?" To have Him as Saviour, as our Sin-bearer, our Redeemer, to have
Him for all things, what can we want more? Day by day He is giving us life, food, shelter, a
degree of health, and so much besides. Every good and perfect gift is from Him, and such gifts
will bring out our thanks, unless we are very thoughtless.

To be thankful is to live with thanksgiving in our hearts, and often expressed in words, perhaps
silent words in the heart, but the thankfulness dwells within. "Be ye thankful," means a state of
mind and heart, our attitude towards God. It does not mean that we give thanks for some great
gift, though we always have the gifts of Christ and the Holy Spirit to be thankful for. It means
realizing more and more of the goodness of God, and how He gives us all things richly to enjoy.
How great an advance it is to learn to be "giving thanks always for all things to God and the
Father in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Eph. 5:20).

Think what this means; "giving thanks always for all things." There are many times we are
thankful when some great blessing comes to us. There are great gifts we are sure to be thankful
for, but here it is expressly declared that the believer in Christ is to be "giving thanks always,"
and in so doing there would of necessity be thanksgiving for all things. This is the proper, normal
feature of the Christian life; this is one of the crowning blessings of the Spirit of God dwelling
within us. See how it makes one an overcomer to be always giving thanks for whatever comes to
us. It means that we know God controls all persons and all things. It means receiving all that
comes to us as coming from Him. Good things certainly do not come from our enemies, human
or satanic. And the bad things are made to work together for good to us. That is victory. It is what
God gives us to realize. It is not dead philosophy, or any kind of philosophical reasoning, which
is all that they of the world have for comfort. It is not only a teaching, a doctrine, an abstract truth
which the child of God has; he has a Person, the Son of God, the Man Christ Jesus to be thankful
for, to give thanks to.

This is the wonder of God’s salvation; we are brought to know a Person to Whom we can give
thanks and for Whom we can be thankful. We read of Him in Scrip-tare, learn its teaching
concerning Him, what He is to us, what He has done, is doing and will do for us; and it is all
something to thank God for, to have Christ call us His brethren, and to learn to thank Him for

coming into the world for us, bearing our sins on that cross of agony and shame, dying for
sinners, rising for them, and now making intercession for them. What truths to be thankful for!
They are precious realities, events which really took place, and upon them is founded our present
and eternal blessing.

Scripture places before mankind that which differs from all man-made religions; it gives man a
Person to love and praise and the work of that Person to be thankful for. Search, if you will, all
the chronicles of all the religions of mankind and see if in any of them you find a divine Person
who is both God and Man, to love, to praise, to thank for being the Sin-bearer for men. Christ
is all this and more. He is a perfect Saviour. Think of what it means to have all our sins gone
forever, blotted out by the work of Christ, a new nature given; light, and life, and love, and hope
given in place of the darkness of the world, with an eternity of joy after this life.

Ought not those to whom all this belongs be thankful? We love Christ now; we are going to love
Him much more when He has transferred us to the Glory at His coming and given us His own
likeness. We are now the children of God, on the way to receive an inheritance from and with
Christ our Lord. He is a King but not our King; He is our Lord and Saviour, and a part of His
will concerning us while we are here is that we should be thankful. Can we wonder that Christ
is called "His unspeakable Gift"? (According to the Greek text, "free Gift"). He is God’s Gift to
sinful men, women, children, given freely to all who will receive Him. There is nothing to pay;
Christ has paid all; nothing to do, as men count doing to gain salvation; Christ has done it all.

Christ receiveth sinners and sinners receive Christ. And as soon as a sinner receives Him, the life
of thanksgiving begins. One may lose the spirit of thankfulness, but it should be cherished. Many
forms of temptation and snares are avoided by always being thankful. We should often offer
thanks to God for this and that blessing. It opens our hearts to His great goodness when we often
praise Him for the gifts we enjoy. It is a banisher of depression and fear when we recount to Him
what He has done for us in the past, and think what He has promised to do, thanking Him for the
blessings we enjoy. "Count your many blessings, name them one by one." Looking on their
number, their greatness, their value, is it strange that God would have His children thankful?

FRAGMENT
(Let such thoughts exercise us at the meeting for breaking of bread. Then more will take part in
rising to say even simply:"We thank Thee, Lord, for suffering for us even unto death."