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Thanksgiving and Prayer
Today’s WORSHIP QUOTE offers three "Thanksgiving" applications. The authors are Dallas Willard, John Calvin, and the writer of Hebrews. THANKSGIVING AND PRAYER (Dallas Willard) Thanksgiving is an inevitable accompaniment of vital prayer. The purpose is not to manipulate God into thinking we are grateful and that he should therefore give us more. That unfortunate idea is quite ridiculous, of course, and yet many people toy with it or even try to put it into practice. Nevertheless, prayer in the manner of Jesus will have incredible results, and thanksgiving will be a constant theme just because that is the reality of our relationship with God. Thanksgiving goes hand in hand with praise. We are thankful when we know we are living under the provisions of his bountiful hand. [see Philippians 4:6] — Dallas Willard, THE DIVINE CONSPIRACY: REDISCOVERING OUR HIDDEN LIFE IN GOD, San Francisco: HarperCollins, p. 243. ISBN 0-06-069333-9. THANKSGIVING AND WORSHIP (Hebrews 12:28-29) Do you see what we’ve got? An unshakable kingdom! And do you see how thankful we must be? Not only thankful, but brimming with worship, deeply reverent before God. For God is not an indifferent bystander. He’s actively cleaning house, torching all that needs to burn, and he won’t quit until it’s all cleansed. God himself is Fire! — Hebrews 12:28-29 from Eugene Peterson’s THE MESSAGE: THE NEW TESTAMENT IN CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH, Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1993. ISBN 08910-97287 THANKSGIVING AND PRAYER (John Calvin) By prayer and supplication we pour out our desires before God, asking as well those things which tend to promote his glory and display his name, as the benefits which contribute to our advantage. By thanksgiving we duly celebrate his kindnesses toward us, ascribing to his liberality every blessing which enters into our lot. . . . The sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving can never be interrupted without guilt, since God never ceases to load us with favor upon favor, so as to force us to gratitude, however slow and sluggish we may be. In short, so great and widely diffused are the riches of his liberality towards us, so marvelous and wondrous the miracles which we behold on every side, that we never want a subject and materials for praise and thanksgiving. — John Calvin, INSTITUTES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, Book Third, Chapter XX, Translated by Henry Beveridge, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989, page 176 in Volume II. ISBN 0802881661 Have a great Thanksgiving week, Chip Stam Director, Institute for Christian Worship School of Church Music and Worship The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Louisville, Kentucky www.carlstam.org www.sbts.edu |