November 24 – An Act of Gratitude (Psalm 105:1-7)

“Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done.”(Psalm 105:1)

IN WORD:
We know both by way of Scripture and by the impulses of our hearts that God is to be thanked. There is no way to understand the profound implications of His grace and to remain thankless in our attitude. In fact, Paul links gratitude with a true knowledge of God and the desire to glorify Him (Romans 1:21). It’s a scriptural principle: To know what God has done is to be thankful.
What does that mean for us? Is it simply an attitude of the heart? Though it begins there, we know there should be more. When we are truly grateful fo another person, we want to do things for him or her. Do we have the same impulse with God? Does our gratitude result in an intense desire to offer some gift to Him as an act of devotion? If so, Psalm 105 gives us at least one natural response to His grace: We can make Him known.
God’s grace is deeply personal, but it is not private. Scripture tells us repeatedly that God desires a reputation among our families and among the nations. From the people passing through the Red Sea to the recipients of Jesus’ miracles, the natural response to God’s mercy has always been a deep desire to tell about it. The glimpse that the Bible gives us of gratitude is a spontaneous proclamation of His goodness. If we have no urge to tell, perhaps we have no deep awareness of His works. His goodness is too good to keep to ourselves.

IN DEED:
Do you have that urge for others to know how good your God is? Then you understand: You have recognized His work within you and you are grateful for it. In all of the overflow that begins this psalm, there is a direct, vertical worship of God, and there is also a horizontal relationship with others that gives us ample opportunity to declare what we know of Him. We are to “tell of all his wonderful acts” (v. 2). The gifts of God are public domain. He is worthy of the highest reputation we can proclaim.

“Thanksgiving is good, but thanks-living is better.”
-Matthew Henry-