Thanksgiving Post

This past week was American Thanksgiving, and as expected, it got a lot of people thinking about what they’re grateful for. In this time period, it might be hard to look on the bright side. In keeping with the Thanksgiving spirit, the past week’s verse of the week was Psalms 100:4-5. Instead of going chronologically, I’m going to start with verse five as it gives the reason for why we should be giving thanks, then move to verse four. Forever seems like a long time, doesn’t it? It’s hard to wrap our minds around the fact that God has always existed, even before the beginning of time. The verse says that “the Lord is good and his love endures forever.” Looking at how it’s written, we can see that not only does God’s love endure forever, but the goodness of God does as well. The next part of the verse states, “his faithfulness continues through all generations.” An example of God's continued faithfulness is Abraham. He was an old man with an old wife who never had any children, yet God promised that Abraham would be a “father of many nations” (Genesis 17:4). This promise was fulfilled many times over through Abraham’s son, Isaac. Throughout the Bible, there are plenty of examples, and I’m sure if you ask your serving ones, they too will have testimonies of God’s continued faithfulness. So aren’t these plenty of reasons to be thankful?
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Verse four is where David, the author of Psalms, explicitly tells us to be thankful. But what are these gates and courts? During the time Psalms was written, David was the king of Israel. As the king, he likely lived in a palace complete with gates and courts. The gates are the entrance to the palace, and the courts are the sections of land that appear right as you enter the gates. What I believe David is trying to say is that once we enter, we should immediately be giving thanks. Likewise, God is a king, but He doesn’t exactly have a physical palace complete with gates and courts. However, as Christians, we have the Holy Spirit living within us. Therefore, we are constantly in the presence of God, and as we are now within His gates, we should be continuously giving thanks. After all, He is worthy of all our praise.