Every year, we celebrate a national day of Thanksgiving, and I hope we all know that the whole point of that day is to give God thanks for our many blessings. But what should giving thanks to God include? Can we stop with a simple prayer, or does God expect more from us?

Well, according to today’s passage, giving thanks must certainly include some words. But instead of just listing the things it is obvious that God has given us – things like our life and our health – we should also thank God even for the things that we ourselves have worked hard to earn. Verse 2 makes it clear that the people of Israel would work the ground of the Promised Land, raising all kinds of crops. But instead of patting themselves on the back at harvest-time, they were to acknowledge that God is the ultimate author of all our blessings. In short, in a proper thanksgiving, there is no room for pride.

Instead, our whole focus should be on what God has done for us. The Ancient Israelites were supposed to recall the way God had kept His promises: promises to release them from slavery in Egypt and to bring them into the land He had sworn to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But we have much greater reasons to rejoice. For all who trust in Christ have been set free from a much more serious slavery – bondage to sin and death – and we have been joined to the very Body of Christ.

And that explains why true thanksgiving always involves actions as well as words. The Ancient Israelites were supposed to give God their firstfruits, not just what was left over once they had eaten their fill. And it’s still a good idea to put God first, not just in our thoughts, but on our agendas and in our budgets. Since God has given us His greatest gift in Jesus Christ, and since God has made it possible for us to earn every penny we’ve ever made, doesn’t it make sense to give Him His share off the top? And if the Ancient Israelites were called to give a tenth of their income to further work of God’s Kingdom, does it really make sense for us to give any less, since we have been given so much more?

So, yes, let’s give God our thanks with our lips not just on Thanksgiving Day, but all year long. But let’s also thank Him with our lives. Let’s devote all we are and all we have to the glory of the One Who has saved us and made us His own.

Deuteronomy 26:1-15 (NASB)

“Then it shall be, when you enter the land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance, and you possess it and live in it,
2 that you shall take some of the first of all the produce of the ground which you shall bring in from your land that the LORD your God gives you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place where the LORD your God chooses to establish His name.
3 “And you shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, ‘I declare this day to the LORD my God that I have entered the land which the LORD swore to our fathers to give us.’
4 “Then the priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down before the altar of the LORD your God.
5 “And you shall answer and say before the LORD your God, ‘My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down to Egypt and sojourned there, few in number; but there he became a great, mighty and populous nation.
6 ‘And the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, and imposed hard labor on us.
7 ‘Then we cried to the LORD, the God of our fathers, and the LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction and our toil and our oppression;
8 and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and with great terror and with signs and wonders;
9 and He has brought us to this place, and has given us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
10 ‘And now behold, I have brought the first of the produce of the ground which Thou, O LORD hast given me.’ And you shall set it down before the LORD your God, and worship before the LORD your God;
11 and you and the Levite and the alien who is among you shall rejoice in all the good which the LORD your God has given you and your household.
12 “When you have finished paying all the tithe of your increase in the third year, the year of tithing, then you shall give it to the Levite, to the stranger, to the orphan and to the widow, that they may eat in your towns, and be satisfied.
13 “And you shall say before the LORD your God, ‘I have removed the sacred portion from my house, and also have given it to the Levite and the alien, the orphan and the widow, according to all Thy commandments which Thou hast commanded me; I have not transgressed or forgotten any of Thy commandments.
14 ‘I have not eaten of it while mourning, nor have I removed any of it while I was unclean, nor offered any of it to the dead. I have listened to the voice of the LORD my God; I have done according to all that Thou hast commanded me.
15 ‘Look down from Thy holy habitation, from heaven, and bless Thy people Israel, and the ground which Thou hast given us, a land flowing with milk and honey, as Thou didst swear to our fathers.’