If you were to ask me what I am finally learning after celebrating over four decades of Thanksgivings, here would my first thought: A VAGUE view of God will always lead to gratitude/ingratitude that is CIRCUMSTANTIALLY-shaped/colored. “Giving thanks always for all things” is impossible without a focus upon ALL of the TRANSCENDENT Trinity! I recently saw a post that set me full-tilt in this direction as we enter yet another holiday season, “Christianity does not call for vague thanksgiving to a vague deity. Our God is triune and, as a result, thanksgiving has a Trinitarian flavor.”

In a day of gratitude being increasing divorced from our God on His own terms, how do we more thoroughly appreciate how each Person of the Trinity enhances it? According to Ephesians 5, to celebrate Thanksgiving God’s way requires three grateful surrenders to the Trinity.

Make God the SPIRIT the SOURCE of your thanksgiving.

    Ep 5:18-19 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;

    Without God’s Spirit fueling and funding our gratitude, we will never reach the heights of thanksgiving that God intended us to reach, not just in eternity but in THIS LIFE! As Chris Teis recently posted on social, “Do we have grateful hearts because of God’s Spirit in us, or because it’s a Thanksgiving holiday in America so we need to do the “thankful” things? True gratitude… isn’t bound to a season of one’s holidays, it is bound by the Spirit to a believer’s heart every day.”

    First, the Holy Spirit must be the source of our filling…not the false, fleshly “spirits” of this world. Paul’s recommended alternative to being drunk with wine is being filled with the Spirit. When we compare and contrast the two states, we see why the apostle links them in this way. There are no voids in our heart and lives.  Without Spirit-enabled gratitude filling them, the wrong feelings and thoughts will build false narratives and conclusions that are fueled by ingratitude.  Sometimes in the Bible, the filling with the Spirit seems to be presented as a sovereign gift of God (ex. John the Baptist). Here in Ephesians 5:18 the believer is commanded to be filled with the Spirit. It is not automatic but the promised result of intentional obedience. Where are you not being proactive and, therefore, setting yourself up to be controlled by anything/anyone less than God’s Spirit?

    Also God the Spirit must be the source of our worship. Now the apostle gives the results of being filled with the Spirit. The divine infilling opens the mouth to talk about the things of the Lord, and enlarges the heart to share these things with others. We understand psalms to mean the inspired writings of David, Asaph, and others. Hymns are non-inspired songs which ascribe worship and praise directly to God. Spiritual songs are any other lyrical compositions dealing with spiritual themes, even though not addressed directly to God. Notice that this worship and gratitude are not merely with our lips, but with the heart for the glory of the Lord.

    Ron Dunn pointedly reminds us that to fail in this area impacts not just our Thanksgiving but that of others around us, “If the church does not learn to knock boldly at the Father’s door, her magnificent sanctuaries will become empty bread boxes, and the starving travelers will turn away empty from the choreographed worship.” John 4:24 reminds us, “God is Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth.” To GIVE thanks in a way that glorifies God requires that we regularly RECEIVE it from surrendering to/opening up to His Spirit.  Where are you trying to worship God this Thanksgiving in your even well-intended flesh instead of His Spirit?

    Make God the FATHER the OBJECT of your thanksgiving.

    Ep 5:20a “Giving thanks always for all thing unto God and the Father…

    Booker T. Washington wrote on how Emancipation Proclamation really impacted former slaves, “There was great rejoicing, and thanksgiving, and wild scenes of ecstasy. But the simply joy of the moment did not last for the newly freed people.  The great responsibility of being free, of having charge of themselves, of having to think and plan for themselves and their children, seemed to take possession of them.  It was very much like suddenly turning a youth of ten or twelve years out into the world to provide for himself.” This left-to-themselves condition is not the believer…all because of our Heavenly Father!

    When aimed at the Father, we have the object necessary to build consistent gratitude. This is meant to be deep appreciation that is not occasional but continual. Not just circumstantial but convictional in the spirit of 1 Thessalonians 5:18, “In everything give thanks.” I recently read, “Make it a rule to thank and praise God for everything that happens to you. For it is certain that whatever seeming calamity comes to you, if you thank and praise God for it, you turn it into a blessing. If you could work miracles, you could not do more for yourself than by this thankful spirit: for it needs not a word spoken and turns all that it touches into happiness.” God our Father, unlike our fickle-at-best ones in this life, is unchanging.  Where is your life and gratitude inconsistent because it is defined more by your mood or circumstances than your IMMUTABLE FATHER?

    The glorious, underserved fatherhood of God also gives an object upon which to show our affection. Chad Bird puts this incredible access we have to the Father so well:

    The Audacity of Calling God “Father”

    You dare to call the Master of the Universe “Father”? You dare to call the One who controls heaven and hell “Father”? You call the Omnipotent one “Father”? Who do you think you are? It is difficult to imagine a more audacious act than to stand before the Creator of the world and to name him “Father.” And mean it. And not only to mean it, but to act and speak as a child acts and speaks before a loving and doting Dad. 

    To call God “Father” is simply to live in the space which Jesus created. To move from residing far from God as his enemy; or on the other side of town from him as a stranger; or down the street as an acquaintance; or in an adjoining house as a servant; and to move into our own bedroom as a child in his family. To wake up in the morning and see our Father sipping a cup of coffee and saying, “Good morning, my child,” as we respond, “Good morning, Father.” 

    You see, when we live in this house, when we move into the room built by Jesus, we inhabit the home not merely of a Master or Lord or King, but the one who’s given us his name and made us his own, now and forever.  “Our Father”: two of the most amazing words ever uttered.

    No matter what other relationships in your life are broken or nonexistent, you have a Heavenly Father who deserves to be the object of your regular gratitude.  Where does your grumbling and bitterness reveal that you don’t see God this way?

    Lastly, make God the SON the CHANNEL of your thanksgiving.

    Ep 5:20b “…in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

    Thanksgiving flows FROM the Spirit, TO the Father, and…THROUGH THE SON Without the “Word,” we would never know or be able to celebrate the goodness of the other two!

    Our gratitude must go through the Son because He is the only channel of mediation. As Paul reminds us in 1 Timothy 2:5, “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” Jesus Himself while here on earth taught His disciples to use His name in any prayer including ones of gratitude (Jn. 16:23). Without Jesus prominently featured in our thanksgiving, we will enter this season with our thoughts/emotions far too defined by self. Max Lucado writes, “To say thanks is to cross the tracks from have-not to have-much, from the excluded to the recruited. Gratitude is a dialysis of sorts. It flushes the self-pity out of our systems.” There is so much that we have access to that we would not without the name of Jesus!  God is able to not only enable us to have gratitude but give us answered prayers to fuel it. Where are you looking to and through everybody but God’s the Son to get what you need and even what you want…and when you don’t feel fulfilled…wallow in self-pity?

    The Son must be the means of directing our gratitude towards God also because, only through Him as “Lord” can we properly do so with reverent submission. Nothing hinders our Thanksgiving more than insisting on only celebrating it if it is on our terms…which means everybody—including even God—must give in to us. Definitely not “WWJD!” Verse 21 goes on to indicate that Spirit-controlled believers are to submit to one another, willingly serving others and being under them rather than dominating them and exalting themselves. But basic to Christians’ attitudes toward others is their reverence for Christ (end of verse 20). As we approach “the holiday season,” we all know that the greatest hurdles and greatest joys are found in community with family and church…something that requires MUTUAL SUBMISSION…impossible without everybody submitting to Christ.  Where are you trying to celebrate Thanksgiving/maintain gratitude without submission to God the Son that has enriched our lives with so, so much?

    The only way to get THANKSGIVING right is to get our practical theology on the TRINITY right.  It frees us from the pull of the world, our flesh, and the devil Himself that are always trending in the opposite direction. Fred Sanders puts it so well, “Salvation comes from the trinity, happens through the trinity, and brings us home to the trinity.” Salvation, in the fullest sense of the word, is the Trinity delivering us from every enemy of gratitude so we can ultimately be “AT HOME”—enjoy the full Trinity forever! Will you fully savor and surrender this Thanksgiving to the Triune God by making the Spirit the SOURCE, the Father the OBJECT, and the Son the CHANNEL?

    Photo by David Lezcano on Unsplash