A Thankful Celebration
Opening Prayer
O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth. I raise my thanks to You.
Read 1 Chronicles 16:7-36
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Scripture taken from the THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Meditate
“Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness” (Col. 3:15, The Message).
Think Further
We don’t always remember to be thankful in the exhilaration of joyous events (Luke 17:11-19). It’s easy to be swept away and forget that we owe the good things we experience to others and to God. But before he and the people dispersed, David allocated to Asaph and his associates the significant task of giving thanks to the Lord. He gave them ongoing responsibility for service to God before the Ark of the Covenant in Jerusalem, while Zadok the priest had oversight of the sacrificial system still operating at the old tabernacle in Gibeon (1 Chron. 16:37-43).
The focus of the thanksgiving is praise to the Lord–for what he has done and for who he is. It reads like one long poem, but it is actually a composite of three poems also found in the Psalms (Psa. 105:1-15; 96:1-13; 106:1,47-48). The contents, while somewhat Israel-centric, are timeless. Thanksgiving is active and explicit; a string of diverse verbs exhort God’s people to participative endorsement of the specific wonders the Lord has done on the nation’s behalf (8-12,28,29). Thanksgiving looks both backward and forward; what God has done for his people in the past (15-22) foreshadows what he will do in the future (34-36). Thanksgiving is not just national (12,13) but international (8,14,23-24) and cosmic (25-27,30-33). Thanksgiving is for God himself and not just for what he has done (25-29). After such a litany of praise, it is no wonder the people responded together: “Amen,” “Praise the Lord” (36)!
Unlike most of our prayers, there is only one request (35). The petition to save, gather and deliver was not a self-centered plea for safety and security among hostile nations. It was a heartfelt cry that God would be honored and praised forever because of the gathering together of his faithful people.
Apply
Compose a personal prayer of gratitude to God for who he is and what he has done. Write it down and read it out loud to him.
Closing prayer
Heavenly Father, it is a good thing for me, Your child, to raise my voice in praise to You. I gladly do it now.
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