“Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name. For the Lord is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting and His faithfulness to all generations.” (rf. Ps. 100:4-5 NASB)
We all know folks who have a difficult time seeing the good in life. Their focus is always on the negative, wanting things to go badly for others and expecting disaster for themselves. These folk remind me of Eeyore in the Winnie Pooh saga. For them, no amount of good news is good; there has to be “a fly in the ointment” somewhere.
The one place where such people should have a difficult time with their perspective should be in church. Since our whole focus as Christians should be the glory of our God, positivity needs to be our perspective. The good God has promised to do good things for His people. We as His people should immerse ourselves in His love, mercy and grace, none of which qualities has any negativity attached.
To that end, the Psalmist reminds us that we should be thankful at all times, especially when we “enter His gates” to worship the Lord. One cannot have a heart of praise and a negative spirit at the same time. Indeed, the latter tends to snuff out the former. How do we keep this from happening to us? The Psalmist tells us: “Give thanks to Him, bless His name”. Why, you may ask? Because “the Lord is good; His lovingkindness and His faithfulness (is) to all generations”; that is the reason. God has given us ample proof of His love toward us as His children. There is no lack of evidence of His mercy and grace in our lives.
With this in mind, let’s take some time during this Thanksgiving holiday season to “give thanks to Him”. He has blessed our families, lives and those of our church family as well. Indeed, when we began the year, our church had to tighten our belt financially. Then, the Lord blessed us in unexpected ways so that we’ve been running a surplus throughout most of 2023. We’ve had large projects to be completed, all of which were paid in full with no debt accrued. Also, He has blessed St. John’s with additions to our membership and new visitors to worship. We’re seeing “new blood” and a revival of interest in our brand of traditional worship. God continues to “shine His countenance” upon us. We pray for more and more of the same blessing as we enter into 2024.
Take a few moments after reading this missive and recount the many blessings you have experienced this year, individually and as part of His work at St. John’s. I think you will agree that we all have absolutely nothing to be negative about! “The Lord is good…and His faithfulness (is) to all generations.”
