Thanksgiving Day and days of corporate worship are excellent times for expressing our thanks to God. However, it does not mean we have to wait until those days show up on our calendars to say thank you to God. Enabled by God’s grace, we can learn to live thankfully everyday by cultivating an attitude of thanksgiving. King David knew this secret and encouraged others in Psalm 100 to “enter the gates of the Lord with thanksgiving.”
In Hebrew, the word for thanksgiving is תּוֹדָה (todah), and is derived from yadah. Its common form means “to acknowledge, confess, or praise.” Thus, todah in Psalm 100 is an acknowledgement or confession of God’s greatness. In God's presence, the worshipper extends the hand to praise Him for His greatness, and this is best accomplished through singing (Psalm 147:7). To cultivate an attitude of gratitude (thanksgiving), as we daily come before God, we must be ready to (a) give Him a sacrifice of praise in worship through singing; (b) acknowledge how great He is, as both the Creator of man and of the universe; (c) offer Him our all as an expression of our dependence on Him in all that we are, what we have, and hope to be in this life and the next.
What a big difference giving thanks makes in our lives! The apostle Paul in writing to the believers in Thessalonica gave them this exhortation: “In everything give thanks for this the will of God in Christ concerning you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). It is probably easier to argue and complain than to discipline oneself into displaying an attitude of thanksgiving. Let us make it our goal to do everything without arguing or complaining—this is what will identify us as God’s children. We should not be like everybody else. Instead we should be different because it is the difference we make or show through our actions that will set us apart from the crowd.
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