All Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible 1995 Ed. (NASB95)

On November 28 in the U.S., most Americans celebrate Thanksgiving Day, which was originally a day to thank God for all the good things that He’s done for His worshipers. Sadly, believers in the Lord Jesus — who ought to be the most thankful people in the world — so often fail to give thanks to our God and Father for the good things we notice in our lives, as well as just for the main blessings He’s given us through salvation. Therefore, it’s good for especially western believers with hardly any lack of any physical need, to evaluate our practice of thanksgiving to the Lord, and learn how we can be more and increasingly thankful.

Since I’ve been bringing you studies from Colossians, I wanted to show you how Paul in Colossians teaches these believers to maintain and increase their thanksgiving to God. Believe it or not, the example of, and instruction for, thanksgiving is a prominent theme in this letter. From a thorough study of it, we can learn at least five main ways that we as believers are to practice and cultivate thanksgiving.

Pray for Your Closest Brethren in the Lord

The first way we should abound in thanksgiving is exemplified by Paul’s and Timothy’s own thanksgiving expressed to the Colossians in 1:3-4:

“We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints . . .”

Here, we see that Paul is simply thankful as he prays always for these brethren because of their faith and love. That is, the main reason he’s thankful to God for them is because He has granted them the abilities to trust in Jesus and to love other believers. Do you regularly thank God for the demonstrations of your closest brethren’s faith and love?

Second, Paul teaches us that we should be thankful by being controlled by wisdom and understanding, so we’ll persevere through trials as we remember our heavenly inheritance.

Allow Yourself to Be Controlled by God’s Will So You’ll Persevere and Remember Your Inheritance

This example of cultivating thanksgiving is found in Paul’s description of the main prayer requests he regularly offers to God for the Colossians:

“For this reason also, since the day we heard . . . we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.” – Col. 1:9-12

In this spectacular passage, Paul describes for us some of the essential ways in which we’ll be able to joyously give thanks to the Father on a regular basis. It all starts with being filled, or controlled by, knowlege of God’s will through spiritual wisdom and understanding. Why is it a spiritual wisdom and understanding? Because it’s such resources as only come from the Spirit. The reason he uses these two words here is because wisdom is the ability to practically apply right knowledge, while understanding is the knowledge of what truth to apply based on specific situations.

Paul goes on to say that, if the Colossians are controlled by these things, they’ll walk in a way that’s worthy of God to please Him “in all respects,” or areas of life. In so doing, they’ll then bear the fruit of good deeds and increase in knowing God. Further, according to verse 11 they’ll be strengthened with all power according to God’s might, so that they’ll “attain” to steadfastness and patience. These two virtues are directly essential to the thanksgiving that he concludes with in his prayer. If they persevere with patience under trial, then they’ll be able to be “giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light” (v. 12).

In other words, ultimately, their thanksgiving will be based on the Father’s qualifying of them to possess the inheritance in “Light,” or the presence of God in the new creation, which is embodied in Jesus. Hence, to circle back to the beginning, as they grow in their understanding of God’s will for them, and their knowledge of Him, they’ll also grow in their appreciation for how their present life contributes to their enjoyment of their eternal inheritance, and therefore grow in their ability to joyfully give thanks to the Father.

Walk through Trust in the Lord, so You’ll Grow in Knowing Him

After outlining the greatest works that the Lord has accomplished for them, and also explaining why and how he suffers for the good of his spiritual children, Paul starts a new section in chapter 2, where he begins to lay the foundation for the Colossians’ practical response to the ways in which they’ve been blessed by God in their redemption. In two simple verses, he lays out the fundamental actions that believers must take to grow in Christlikeness, and to abound in thanksgiving, as he puts it:

“Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude.” – Col. 2:16-17

By beginning this passage with “therefore,” Paul is calling his audience’s attention back to the manner in which they’ve been redeemed, reconciled to God, and called from darkness to light. Also, he’s immediately referring back to his description of their diligent faithfulness in the preceding verse.

So, what are Paul’s main instructions here? First, that the saints need to walk in Jesus the Lord as they received Him. And how did they receive Him? Simply by trusting in, and relying on, Him to be their Savior and Lord. What this means is that they depended on Jesus to provide them with everything they needed to have satisfied souls and hearts. By doing so, they then took Him as their only Representative before God, the One who purchased their redemption, and their status of righteous and blessed sons of God. Thus, Paul says, you must walk in Jesus in the same way. You must live your daily lives by trusting in Jesus to provide you with all that you need to please God, and to have hope, peace, and joy.

Paul next gives the main reason that they can walk in Jesus — because they’re rooted in Him. In other words, they’ve staked the eternal destinies and souls in His character, work, and promises. As a result, they are now “being built up in Him,” or becoming more like Him, since they are established in the faith with which they were “instructed.” Here we see how believers grow, or are built up, in Jesus — by understanding, believing, and applying the truths of Jesus’s nature, works, and teachings.

Finally, as a result of carrying out all these actions through faith in Jesus, Paul promises that they’ll overflow with “gratitude,” or thanksgiving. To summarize, if they live their daily lives by trusting the Lord with their lives, and strive to imitate and obey Him through their beliefs and understanding of Jesus’s teachings, then they’ll be increasingly thankful, so they won’t be able to help giving thanks!

Next, Paul moves on to how this walk in the Lord ought to be applied to believers’ relationships with their brethren, giving us a fourth area that we must cultivate to be thankful Christians.

Be at Peace with Your Brethren and Let the Gospel Flourish in You So You’ll Sing Songs to God

After transitioning to the explicitly practical section of his letter in chapter 3, Paul begins to instruct the Colossians in how the truths of the previous part of the letter are to be applied to specific areas of life. He starts with the bedrock truth that believers now share the same status and position as Jesus in heaven. Hence, we no longer belong to this present world dominated by sin and Satan, but to the next heavenly world where Jesus lives. Specifically, Paul says that just as Jesus is in heaven reigning in the place of honor, so also believers are living there with Him, and that their fullest character and identity will be realized and revealed when Jesus comes from heaven to be revealed.

These realities imply, as Paul continues to say, that the old identity and character of believers as belonging to Adam is dead, and that their new character in Jesus is now living inside of them. Therefore, he urges them to act as if they are no longer their old, sinful, selves, and to act as if they are spiritual, and heavenly children of God. This goes on from verse 1 to verse 14. Then, starting with verse 15, Paul begins to describe how the Colossians’ individual discipline of acting like new creations should be played out among themselves. In three verses, Paul shows us that thanksgiving is one of the key practices that believers are to share with each other in three areas of living. First, in their peace with each other. Second, in their teaching of one another. And finally, in their living with each other. He instructs these things as follows:

“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one antoher with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.” – Col. 3:15-17

So, let’s briefly examine this passage to see how we can practice more thanksgiving. First believers are to let Christ’s peace rule in their hearts, since they’ve been called to this in one body. What this means is that the inner peace they have with God through Jesus living in them should govern their affections, aims, and thinking about their brethren. This interpersonal aspect is implied by the fact that they were called to this peace “in one body,” the body of Jesus. And Paul implies that through having peace with each other, they will then be able to all be thankful together. In this case, their thanksgiving will be provoked directly from their peace in and with each other.

Second, Paul teaches us that we can practice thanksgiving more if we let the word, or “message”, of Jesus richly dwell within us. The way this happens is by obsessing over, and delighting in, the message both that Jesus delivered, and that teaches about Him. At its heart, this message is the good news of who Jesus is, and what He’s done and is doing for His chosen people. If believers focus on and live by this message, then Paul says a few main things will result. First, letting the Messiah’s message live inside of you will motivate you to wisely teach your brethren. Second, it will cause you to admonish, or more clearly counsel your brethren. Third, the form that this will take is singing, whether it be done in “psalms” or “hymns” or “spiritual songs”. And what will this singing inevitably include? “Thankfulness in your hearts to God” (v. 16). Thus, letting Jesus’s teaching flourish inside of you will cause you to sing to God with thankfulness for what the Lord has done for you, leading you to teach and counsel your brethren through your singing together.

Finally, Paul sums up this passage by generically commanding that whatever you do in your speech or your action, you must do in the name of Jesus, as you give thanks to God through Him. In other words, if you make sure that all you do is done to please the Lord, and in order to represent His name, you will naturally give thanks to God because of Jesus.

Lastly, we’ll look at how Paul describes the discipline of prayer fitting in to our thankfulness as believers.

Pray Always and Watch Out for Prayer Concerns so You’ll Give Thanks

The last main way Paul teaches the Colossians to be thankful people is through their diligent practice of prayer. In one verse, he outlines the essential elements of an effective and joyful prayer life by writing:

“Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving . . .” (Col. 4:2)

There are three main elements to regularly incorporating thanksgiving in our praying in this verse. First, we must devote ourselves to prayer. When Paul says devote yourself, he doesn’t mean simply to decide to pray now and then throughout the day. He means that your whole life and activity is one of prayer. He means that you, alongside the brethren with whom you fellowship on a regular basis, must discipline yourself to pray at all times, as he says in such places as 1 Thessalonians 5 and Ephesians 6. It has been well said that prayer is the main work of the Christian, and also — as John Wesley said — that God does nothing on earth apart from the prayers of His saints. By God’s infinite wisdom and love, He has so designed His plan of redeeming humanity that believers must pray for Him to accomplish His purposes on earth. Hence, we must be devoted to praying in all circumstances, for all types of things, and in all sorts of ways.

Being devoted to prayer next demands that we keep alert in it. In other, words, we must think carefully, wisely, and reverently in our talking to God, and in our requests for Him. Specifically, we must be watchful for prayer concerns, so we know what is needed from God, and so we also can recognize when God answers our requests.

Finally, in all our praying we must give thanks to God. First, we should give thanks for God’s revelation of Himself to us — that we know Him. Also, we should thank Him because He’s pleased to hear us through Jesus, and to grant our requests. In addition, we should thank Him for as many of His answers to our requests that we can remember. From this teaching, it’s clear that if there’s no thanking or praising the Lord, then we’re not really devoted to prayer, and likely not even praying in the way that pleases Him.

Be Prayerful, Discerning, Dependent, Dominated, and Devoted

To review, we’ve seen through this study of thanksgiving in Colossians that giving thanks and being thankful affects every area of our lives as believers in Jesus. So, let me give you some questions to use to evaluate your thanksgiving practices and attitudes in your daily living:

  1. Do you regularly give thanks for your closest brothers and sisters in Jesus simply because they’re faithful and loving?
  2. Are you daily seeking to be controlled by wise and understanding knowledge of God’s will, so you can persevere through trials, and give thanks for the heavenly inheritance of the new earth that the Father has promised you?
  3. Are you doing your daily tasks in dependence on the Lord for His grace and power, and endeavoring to imitate Him as much as possible as your understand Him more?
  4. Are you striving to preserve peace with your brethren; letting the gospel be the delight and engine of your soul and heart; and singing to God with teaching and counseling songs along with your fellowships?
  5. Are you constantly devoting yourself to prayer with alertness, so that you’re giving thanks in all circumstances to God?

The bottom line of this teaching is, if you aren’t a thankful person, and growing in thankfulness over time, however slowly, then you aren’t a worshiper of the Lord Jesus, and are still an enemy of God. If you’ve never learned the secret of being regularly thankful to God, then you must understand the message of Jesus Messiah. He is the Creator through whom the Father created all things. Because we have rebelled against His demands for us, we have earned the just punishment of eternal suffering apart from everything good, which is foreshadowed by death. The Father sent God the Son to earth to become the man Jesus, to live the perfect life, and then to yield up His body and life to the worst of punishments on a cross, so that He suffered the wrath and hatred of God we deserve for our crimes. Then, God raised Him from the dead and made Him the Ruler of the universe. He is now the only Representative and Mediator you have to rely on to provide you with God’s peace and forgiveness. But in order for you to be forgiven and made a child of God, you must give up your own thinking and affections as contrary to His will and destructive to your eternal happiness, and trust in Jesus to save you from your punishment, as well as from your evil heart. If you refuse, you will be judged by Him and sentenced to the eternal punishment you deserve for your crimes. If you haven’t done so, please, to please your Creator, and to receive eternal happiness, satisfaction, and pleasure, repent of your rebellious thinking and trust Jesus to save and rule you today! He suffered and died for people just like you, and He loves anyone who will embrace Him for who He is.

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