It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord.
Good to be thankful
1. Had we no other motive but our own personal happiness, we should find it “a good thing to be thankful.” When we have reviewed the mercies of past years, traced the hand of Providence in all our course from infancy onwards, and seen goodness following us all the way, and then have fallen down before our God, with melting hearts and tender eyes, or have poured forth our feelings in some sacred hymn of praise, have we not at such times known the highest luxury this earth can afford? A friend of mine in travelling, happened to lodge in one of the hotels of a neighbourhood city, and in the middle of the night he heard some one in an adjoining room singing in a low but earnest tone of voice, Addison’s hymn, “When all Thy mercies, O my God,” etc., the whole of which he went through, evidently supposing that none heard him but his God. He proved to be a governor of one of our Western States, suffering under an incurable disease, of which he soon after died. But what a frame of mind must that have been which poured forth the gushings of a full heart at the midnight hour, and with a consciousness of approaching death, in such a hymn as that. And as there is no grace which so immediately fills the heart with pleasure, so again it would seem as if none might be more easily cherished than thankfulness. We have so much to make us thankful, that it would appear as if none could resist the impulse. And then, in addition to this, the natural heart is apparently more susceptible of this Christian grace than of any other, so that they who show right feeling in nothing else have seemed moved at times to gratitude to God. And though earth has many trials, yet God has given to us, as well as to everything else in nature, a wonderful restoring power, which makes it easy for us to recover a cheerful and thankful spirit.
3. Again, it is a good thing to be thankful, because such a spirit exhibits religion in a beautiful form to others. We have read of instances of great thankfulness in the midst of great privations, and we may have seen them. We may have gone to some wretched abode of poverty, where it seems, that had it been our lot to dwell there, we could discover nothing but occasion to murmur at our hard fate, and we may have heard there expressions of gratitude and acknowledgments of God’s goodness that have perfectly amazed us. Have we not gone away in love with such a spirit, and ashamed that we possessed no more of it?
4. “It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord,” because it is pleasing to Him. It is true that our returns of praise can add nothing to God’s glory or happiness, and yet He has declared that “whoso offereth Him thanks and praise, he glorifieth Him.” When we confer a favour on a fellow-man we say that we want no thanks for it, meaning thereby that we did not do it for the sake of the thanks; we want not the thanks for our own sake, but as evidence of a right state of heart in him. And for the same reason God loves the returns of gratitude. (W. H. Lewis, D.D.)
Thankfulness
After the return of the Jews from captivity the liturgy of the temple service was rearranged, and this psalm was selected as the Sabbath psalm, and appointed to be sung in the morning service when, on the offering of the first lamb, the wine was poured out as a drink-offering unto the Lord. We must all feel the appropriateness of the selection. What more proper and profitable Sabbath employment than to sing praises unto the name of the Most High? This Sabbath, then, let us raise this Sabbath psalm. By our thanksgiving we shall worship God; through our thanksgiving God will bless us, and we shall prove, in our own experience, “It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord.”
I. Thankfulness is the best antidote to the evils of life and lightens life’s burdens. The burdens of life are not equally distributed; but no life is without them. “Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards.” The chief difference between us lies here--while one man gets him to his burden and carries it, another frets and murmurs and magnifies it. Now, thankfulness, perhaps more than anything else, helps us to keep our eye fixed upon the brighter side of life. If every night as we retired to rest we added up and recorded the mercies of the day, and started each following morning with the record in our hands, what a transfiguration of our life there soon would be! The gloom around us would be scattered, the trees would seem to clap their hands, the mountains and the hills to rejoice together, and the meadows to break out into song.
II. Thankfulness quickens spiritual perception and enlarges spiritual capacity. Take a son who accepts every attention and provision of his mother as a matter of course, regards all that she has done for him as her duty and his due, looks upon all her service as simply fulfilling her obligation to him--what will that son know of his mother’s heart? She may make some great sacrifice for him, and he will greedily accept the gift without appreciating the cost at which it is given. But take a child whose tender heart is touched with every token of the mother’s thoughtfulness and love, that child will understand something of the mother’s heart; as it leaves the gift to fly into its mother’s arms, it will feel something of the joy the mother feels in giving, and the mother’s love will be more to it than the gift itself. It is precisely so with us in our relation to God--the thankful heart discerns and realizes God. The more we are thankful the more we know God as our Friend and our Father. Our thoughts will be nearer the truth and our hearts will be nearer to God because we accept His blessings with gratitude. And thankfulness enlarges spiritual capacity. There are some attitudes of mind and heart in which God cannot bless us. The thirsty man might as well lower a sealed bottle into the well as a man seek blessing from God with a sealed heart. Let us remember this when we think of unanswered prayers. Now, thankfulness opens the heart to God, and God’s blessing fills the open heart as the fresh air rushes through the open window, and the light of heaven fills the unshuttered room. When the heart is thankful for past mercies, new mercies are not far away.
III. Thankfulness fosters confidence and love. The heart that registers mercy received knows there is mercy to follow. The milestones we reach on the King’s highway become guide posts to the Royal City. The ungrateful heart keeps no record of the past, its memory furnishes no evidence of the eternal faithfulness, and every step in life is an untrodden path; but the thankful heart treasures up the record of the past, and travels along as though it had been that way before. That record becomes a guide. With that in our hand we feel no fear, shrink before no difficulty, cringe before no spectre, bow beneath no burden, but trudge along in the confident possession of a strength greater than our own. Soldiers march best to music. They go to face the fatal fire of the musketry, and encounter the keen edge of the sword, but the cheerful and triumphant strain of music quickens their spirit, strengthens their resolve, whets their energy, dissipates their fear, and inspires their courage. Christians live best to praise. It lifts their thoughts from the possibilities of the “awful unknown” and centres them in the faithfulness of their Father. (F. Wells.)
Thanksgiving--a good thing
I. The spirit of thankfulness, and the audible acknowledgment of mercies received, are good on the part of the individual recipient thereof.
II. It is a good thing for the Church of God to give thanks unto the Lord, in open and special acts of acknowledgment.
III. It is a good thing for a nation to give thanks unto the Lord, and especially when distinguished national mercies are vouchsafed. (T. W. Aveling.)
To sing praises unto Thy name, O Most High.--
Praise
I. The reasonableness of praising God. It is His due; and we defraud Him of that which He has a just claim to, at our hand, if we hold it back. To have minds furnished with scientific acquirements, or stored with historical information, or replenished with theological doctrine, and yet to fail to confess with adoring praise that God, with whose wonders, whether of science or of providence or of redemption, we are daily conversant--this is to be as like Satan as we well can be. While, on the other hand, devoutly to acknowledge God in His great works, to laud and magnify His holy name more and more, in proportion as our knowledge is enlarged--this is to be like the holy angels, who live in the continual contemplation of His excellencies, and in the adoring acknowledgment of them.
II. The advantages which accompany the right discharge of this duty.
1. It is a most cheering and enlivening occupation. It is impossible for any one to enter into it with all his heart, without having his spirit refreshed and invigorated by the exercise. One cannot imagine a person to be habitually dejected who spends much of his time in it.
2. It is an antidote to our natural selfishness. In many of our duties we have an eye to ourselves, even while our thoughts are directed to God or to our neighbour. In prayer, for instance, this is the case, and even in thanksgiving. But praise, as distinct from thanksgiving, is eminently unselfish: it draws away our thoughts from ourselves, and fixes them exclusively upon God. We adore and praise Him not merely for those of His perfections, of the advantage of which to ourselves we are directly conscious, but for others also--such as His majesty and greatness, His justice, His wisdom, His power, the advantage of which to ourselves is less immediate and less obvious. (C. A. Heurtley, D.D.)