Rightly understood, all of life is one big “hallelujah”. Hallel is from the Hebrew word that means “to praise” and jah is a derivative of “Yah”, the name of God: Yahweh. Our lives are to be one constant response to who God is and what He has done (namely the Gospel). The essence of Thanksgiving, of course, is the act of “giving thanks”. Giving thanks necessitates Someone to thank. This seems self-evident, but don’t miss this: If you are a follower of Christ, you know Whom to thank. I’ve always marveled at the atheist, the agnostic, irreligious, or the secularist who celebrates thanksgiving. They have no one to thank. Are they thanking themselves? Are we thanking each other? Don’t forget to Whom we give thanks. Giving thanks assumes that you know the One you are thanking. Gratitude is not an ambiguous act. It is expressed to a Person. The Christian is a response to the Gospel that results in a life of thanks-living. It is the life of continuous, Gospel-centered (Christ-centered) worship.

The Heidelberg Catechism (of 1563) is a Christian teaching that is both devotional, as well dogmatic and doctrinal. One of the confessional documents takes the form of a series of questions and answers (129 of them), broken into three categories:

1) the misery of man (the Fall, the natural condition of man, the demands of God’s holy Law)

2) the redemption (or deliverance) of man

3) the gratitude due from man (for such a deliverance)

The first Lord’s Day is read as a summary of the catechism as a whole. As such, it illustrates the character of the entire work- here’s the first Question:

“What is thy only comfort in life and death?”

This is the answer:

“That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ; who, with His precious blood, hath fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto Him.”

Give thanks to Him by living for Him every single day.

Happy Thanksgiving!