Thoughtful Thursday: Give Thanks (Part 1)

Thanksgiving is my second favorite holiday, next to Christmas.  What about you?  
 I love the weather!  I love the pumpkin-scented and pumpkin-flavored everything!  I love the food! 
I especially love the attitude of thankfulness that seems to come upon everyone.  Although we should be mindful and thankful every day for all that God has given us, this is when we really take the time to remember how blessed we are.
When I was looking up the word “thanksgiving” and the phrase “give thanks” in the Bible, I found that they are most often mentioned in the book of Psalms. 

Here are a few of my favorites:
Psalms 26:7 “That I may publish with the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of all thy wondrous works.”
Psalms 69:30 “I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving.”
Psalms 105:1 “O give thanks unto the LORD; call upon his name: make known his deeds among the people.”
Psalms 106:1 “Praise ye the LORD. O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.”

The one that I most associate with thanksgiving is Psalms 100:4 -“Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.”

“Enter into his gates with thanksgiving…”  I believe that He is referring literally to the gates of the Temple, which for us now would be the local church.  As we enter the doors of our church, we have much to be thankful for.  We should be thankful for the church itself, a place to go and worship God with other believers.  We should be thankful for a country where we have the freedom to worship freely without the threat of persecution.  Some places don’t have these same freedoms.  We should be thankful for the Gospel that brought us the truth of eternal life. 

As we go through the month of November, I’d like to breakdown this verse and use it to remind us of some things to be thankful for.