Meditations on Giving Thanks for the New Year

With the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays just ahead of us, the concept of giving thanks is a timely one. Below are excerpts from 3 Standard Bearer meditations on giving thanks. May each of these lead you in this holiday season (and in the coming year!) to reflect on the value of every day, with giving thanks to God always at the forefront of your mind.

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"Ye are the salt of the earth.

"That royal priesthood is realized in you, citizens of the kingdom of heaven in the midst of the world. Emphatically, distinctively, ye are the salt of the earth; no one else is. Through you, in you, on account of you all things are pleasing to God. If it were not for you, no sweet-smelling savor would arise to the Most High from the things that are on the earth. The salt of the earth ye are antithetically, in distinction from the children of this world. For your sake only, the Lord takes pleasure in the earth. Even as it was in His covenant with Noah. Indeed, a covenant of salt it was. For Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast and every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a sweet savor, the savor of His grace, of the humble and contrite heart that would bring Him the glory of His name, and He said: “I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake...neither will I again smite any more every living thing, as I have done. While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease,” Gen. 9:20-22.

"And it is through grace that this distinction is yours."

—The Salt and Thanksgiving was written by Herman Hoeksema in 1940 for Standard Bearer Vol 17, Issue 4. 

"Indeed, the world cannot exist without this Thanksgiving Day...the eternal Thanksgiving Day. The fire of adoration of the Godhead may never go out. It must send its sweet smelling fragrance upward, ever upward to God, so that He may haply rejoice on His throne.

"We are to send the smoke of such incense in the early morning, at noon and when evening lengthens the shadows. We are to send the smoke of the fire and of the sacrifices upward in the watches of the night. Everywhere, always, under any and every circumstance are we to give thanks to our God. In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. I Thess. 5:18. 

"And so we will go to the house of God and adore Him whether we are rich or poor, whether we have a plentiful crop or famine, whether it is war or peace, whether we are healthy or sick, whether we live or die. In everything we will give thanks to God."

—Thanksgiving was written by Gerrit Vos in 1955 for SB Vol 32, Issue 4. 

"We have much for which we can and ought to give thanks...[O]ur attention is drawn to the material abundance God has given us. God has prospered the works of our hands. He has given us much, both as a nation and as the church.

"But more importantly, God has showered us with the spiritual blessings of salvation in Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ, God has provided forgiveness of all our sin and reconciliation to Him. In Christ, God has given us a new life in which we are able to enjoy a most intimate relationship of friendship and fellowship with Him. In Christ, we have the hope of better things to come in heavenly glory. In Christ, we have all that we could possibly wish for, and more besides. And it is all a gift of grace to undeserving sinners.

"For all of these gifts, spiritual and material, we are to give thanks. We are to thank God first of all in prayer. This is the chief part of thankfulness that God requires. And we are to thank God in spiritual songs that praise Him for His greatness and express gratitude for His gracious gifts. And do not forget to thank God by performing works of gratitude. These are works in which we use all of God’s gifts, spiritual and material, to serve Him as an expression of our deep gratitude to Him."

—Giving Thanks was written by James Slopsema in 2016 for SB Vol 93, Issue 4.

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