Free PDF and Review: Thankfulness (Free Grace Broadcaster)

Various Authors. Thankfulness.  Pensacola, FL: Chapel Library, November 8th 2016. 48 pp.

5 out of 5

Free: Chapel Library

Purchase: Amazon

Want to read something devotionally on the topic of being thankful and thanksgiving to the Lord?  This resource from Chapel Library might be for you.  Feature in this pamphlet are essays of various historic Protestant preachers and pastors on thanksgiving to God.  These authors are all tested saints from centuries ago but the truth found in its pages is timeless.  There’s various compiled writings from William Cooper, Richard Sibbes, Thomas Mantion, Charles Spurgeon and others.  This is my third Free Grace Broadcaster I read.  The earlier one I read was on Messianic Prophecies and Fatherhood.  Like the first one this particular booklet too was a spiritual delight!

There are nine articles in this work.  My favorite one of them was Charles Spurgeon’s “Thankfulness in All Things.”  With each article I did got something spiritual from them.  Here’s some of the quotes and my reflection/application:

• William Cooper on page 5 states “Our continual praying shows that we are always beggars, and our continual thanksgiving shows us always debtors.”  I thought it was good to dwell on this thought since sometimes we can think God owes us when we thank him, as if it is some merit of works righteousness.  But our thanksgiving is a confession of our need for God and His grace.  May we thank God for His grace and see our debt to Him.
• Richard Sibbes on page 6 states “It is natural for the new creature, when it feels the Sun of Righteousness warming the soul, when it tastes of the mercy of God in Christ, to show forth itself in thanksgiving and praise.” Reflecting on this I thought about how our thanksgiving to God is based upon the grace of God changing us into new creatures.  This is the doctrine of regeneration. It’s the change God does within us to praise and thank Him.  May we praise Him.
• Thomas Manton wrote “And therefore praise and thanksgiving [are] greater helps to the spiritual life than we are usually aware of; for working in us a sense of God’s love and an actual remembrance of His benefits (as it will do if rightly performed), it doth make us shy of sin [and] more careful and solicitous to do His will” (9).  Application: so much of our fight with sin can be helped by His grace if we focus on thanksgiving and praise as Manton pointed out of how remembering God’s benefit makes us shy to sin.  Life doesn’t always go comfortable following Christ, Manton himself was even Imprisoned for preaching the Gospel before, but if we focus on thanksgiving to God it mortify sin.  No matter our trials all believers have the Gospel and Christ to be thankful for, for Him saving us from sin’s power, penalty and propaganda.  When sin is hard to fight don’t just focus on saying no to sin but also focus on thanking God and Christ
• From John Gill this quote stood out: “It is an happiness to be born in a land where the Gospel is preached and not among Pagans, Mohammedans, and Papists, where there is a “famine”: “not a famine for bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord” (Amo 8:11)” (13).  Here John Gill notes one thing people in England can be grateful for is being in a place where there is access to God’s Word.  That is probably even truer with us today in the US and all the technological access to resources about the Bible and the plenty of Bible and teaching of the Bible in the church.  May we don’t take it for granted hearing the Word of God.  May we also yearn to study the Word deeper.
• Spurgeon on page 24 said “Thankfulness is one of the easiest virtues for anyone to practice, and certainly it is one of the cheapest.”  Application: Thanksgiving to God is the easiest thing to do yet hardest because of Sin.  Let us all cultivate thanksgiving to the Lord by regularly counting our blessings from God.
• From John Flavel: “And think not what God bestows upon you is wholly for your own use; but honor God with your mercies by clothing the naked and feeding the hungry, especially such as are godly” (30).  Application: our blessings from God is not just for ourselves but also a means to bless others.  This quote is originally a sermon to sailors back in the day of wooden ships (but iron men!).  One can feel when risk one’s life for money that it is your own money.  And yet Flavel encourages a spirit of generosity to others with our hard earn income.
• Spurgeon on page 32 also said “Some show their unthankfulness by fretting under their supposed ills. They know from Scripture that even their afflictions are working for their good, yet they do not rejoice in the prospect, or feel any gratitude for the refining process through which the Lord is passing them.”  Reflection: Even our trials are things to praise God about.

There are many other great biblical meditations and thoughts I got from this.  It was great to read this during the month of November approaching Thanksgiving holiday, to warm the heart towards God with a spirit of thanksgiving.