Friday, July 20, 2012

Why Give Thank Offerings To God? Psalm 50:23

A short post looking at the relevance of thank offerings in the modern age.

What good are thank offerings in this modern age? Do thank offerings have any relevance to modern religion?

"He who sacrifices thank offerings honors me, and he prepares the way so that I may show him the salvation of God." Psalm 50:23, NIV.

Nothing adds more grace and charm to a person's character than the attitude of thankfulness. Few things equal thankfulness in strengthening relationships between people; we should at least treat God with no less civility than our friends.

If we gave a gift to someone and they didn't say, "Thank you," we wonder if they liked the gift, and we may not give such a good gift next time. Likewise, if we don't thank God, should we expect such rich blessings to continue in our lives?

"HE WHO SACRIFICES THANK OFFERINGS..."

Since God is the Author and Owner of all creation, any physical offering is already His. We are like children asking our parents for money to buy them a gift. On the other hand, our words are truly ours, ours by creation and ownership; when we give thanks to God, we are giving God something that in all of earth and heaven only we can give.

Our thankfulness "honors" God, and here God makes a point of it.

Thankfulness:
  • Acknowledges that God is the source of our blessings.
  • Makes us humble before God.
  • Is right.
  • Expresses our dependence on God.
  • Pleases God.

THANKFULNESS WORKS ON OUR HEARTS.

Thankfulness "prepares the way, and it prepares us. Thanking God causes us to grow in our relationship with him. Thankfulness makes us ready for more blessings.

GOD RESPONDS:

God responds, the verse says, "...that I may show him the salvation of God."There is a future tense of this verse; God has a purpose and plan, and thankfulness gets us in tune with that plan. It seems as if some blessings are contingent on a partnership of thanksgiving, for the verse says, "I may," not "I will." Offerings of thanks remove barriers to our faith and in our thinking that oppose God's blessings: so he "may show" us the salvation of God.

GIVE THANKS:

We need to make thankfulness a bigger part of our relationship with God. We need to think hard about our blessings and take time and thank Him. When we pray, we should thank the Lord for that answer even though it has not yet happened; let's thank him for the answers before we end that prayer, even though the answer seems so far off. It takes faith, but this truly honors Him and prepares us to see the salvation of the Lord.

Here is a link to another helpful post on thankfulness, Psalm 107:1.

(c) Adron Dozat 7/20/12