A Prayer Of Thanksgiving

“A Prayer of Thanksgiving”

Psalm 95:1-8 11/10/2007

Rudyard Kipling, who was the author of “The Jungle Book”, was so popular that his writings were earning him about $ 10 per word. A few college students however didn’t appreciate Kipling’s writings, so they sent him a letter, enclosing with it ten shillings( or about $10). It read simply, “Please, send us your best word”. They received a letter back that simply read, “Thanks”.

Thanks. A word we are taught at an early age. A word we teach our own kids at a very early age. “What do you say?” is a question our kids hear all most as soon as they can talk. We encourage our kids at a very early age to say “Thank you”.

A prayer that I taught our kids and one that I over heard some of our AWANA kids repeating the other night goes like this. “God is good, God is great. And we thank Him for our plate. By our hands we are feed, give us Lord our Dailey Bread”. It is a simple prayer and a prayer of thanksgiving. We teach it to our kids but do we apply it to our lives?

So this week as we enter the time where we celebrate Thanksgiving, let me give you some things from this prayer that we can be Thankful for.

God is GOOD

Psalm 107:1Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.

You often hear the slag, “Good Lord” when it comes to someone being upset about something. There is another saying, “It’s all good”, but without God, nothing is good, and He is a “Good Lord” even when we are upset. And with God it is not just, “all good”, it is always good.

What makes God good? That is a sermon within it self. But let me give you just a few reasons that came to my mind as to why God is good.

God is good because of His MERCY.

The verse we read in 107:1 states to give thanks to the LORD, for His is good! For His MERCY endures forever. I thank God for His mercy. What is God’s mercy? First of all I think about His mercy for us by leaving Heaven and all of its glory to come to this earth and give His life freely for you and for me.

Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

While we still sinners. We didn’t deserve that. We hadn’t even been born yet. What we deserved is to die and spend eternity in a place called Hell. We all of sinned and because of that we deserve to die. Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

God in His mercy gave us a gift of His only son to pay the price that was ours to pay. That is mercy! God is good for His mercy. We should thank Him for His mercy.

God is good for His GRACE!

What is Gods grace? Grace and mercy go hand in hand. But when I think of Gods grace, I think about how He is always ready to restore our relationship with Him. We sin and we sever that relationship. 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

That’s grace. We in our minds may have the mindset of “fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me”. We don’t have a very forgiving spirit. But we need to thank God for His forgiving grace.

The list goes on and on for Gods goodness. I asked my son why God is good and his reply was “Everything”. And the truth is that EVERYTHING is good about God, “it’s all good” as I stated earlier. Not only is God good and we should give Him thanks. God is good, but also…

God is GREAT

Titus 2:13 looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,

God is Great, and the main reason that God is great is because of what He can do. We talk about great football plays, “That was a great play”. We talk about a show or a movie that we have seen and we think it was great. We even talk about food being great. As Tony the tiger says about “Frosted Flakes, There GREAT”. So what makes God so great?

Jeremiah 32:17 ’Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for You.