Listen

Your ministry of this service to God’s people isn’t only fully meeting their needs but it is also multiplying in many expressions of thanksgiving to God. They will give honor to God for your obedience to your confession of Christ’s gospel. They will do this because this service provides evidence of your obedience, and because of your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone. They will also pray for you, and they will care deeply for you because of the outstanding grace that God has given to you. Thank God for his gift that words can’t describe!

2 Corinthians 9:12-15

Think

Paul wrote to the Corinthian church to invite them into partnership in Paul’s mission. The money they gave would allow the work of God to go on, and it would help meet the needs of people who would receive Paul’s ministry.

But the church’s giving was not the end game. And a forced “thanks” scrawled in a notecard was not the desired response.

True thanksgiving has many expressions; it isn’t just good manners or warm fuzzy traditions. It prompts action – it moves us to honor and share and pray and care. True thanksgiving inspires us to celebrate God’s work in our own lives and in the lives of all who share generously. True thanksgiving builds relationships, as both givers and receivers see the seeds of God’s grace in each other.

Thanksgiving goes both ways: givers and receivers pray for one another and care for one another. Actually, thanksgiving goes every way, more ways than we can count. Thanksgiving is an abundant harvest, growing everywhere that God’s amazing gifts take root.

Nikki Finkelstein-Blair

Pray

Thank you, God, for calling us to so much more than good manners and nostalgic traditions! Help us express our thanksgiving in every way, all year long, so that the world will know your good gifts all ways, and always. Amen.

Go

Give thanks to God, who has come with you all this way.

Give thanks to God, whose presence surrounds you now.

Give thanks to God, who is already preparing you for the road ahead.