T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
3SS
Thankful for Each Other By A. W. TOZER* Chicago, Illinois
,
The Debt We Owe Each of us owes a great debt to God’s people', living and dead. To the gifted great of the kingdom, We owe such a mighty burden of debt, that we could not in a lifetime repay it, even were such an opportunity af forded us. How much do we owe to those “holy men of God [who spoke] as they were, moved by the Holy Ghost” ? And what is our debt to those bearded guardians of the sacred oracles who through centuries of per secution shielded with their lives the precious treasure committed to their charge? How much do we owe to those obscure and forgotten scholars whose patient toil kept pure the sa cred text? Or to those meticulous word masters whose translations brought the Word of God out of the cloisters. and gave i t to the common man? How much do we owe to the great Christian writers of other days for books that have blessed the ages: Augustine’s Confessions, Taylor's Holy Living, Bunyan’s Pilgrim's Progress, Milton’s Paradise Lost, to name only a few? When we turn to the hymns of the church, how can we sufficiently praise God and thank His servants? The St. Bernards, the Wattses, the New tons, the Wesleys, and such as they! They have given voice to the church’s jubilation, have caught and set to mu sic her tears and triumphs and joys and longings; they have enabled her to sing, without which she must have suffocated, like Keats’ tongueless nightingale, from the fullness of hef unexpressed delights. Then there are the prophets and apostles, the martyrs and reformers whose sacrificial toil has made us rich. As we muse on what they have done for us, thanksgiving rises natu rally to our lips. We cannot thank them in person (we may be able to do so in the world to come), but we can thank God often for them and for all they have contributed to our eternal happiness. Were any of us able to trace back the path by which the good Word of God and the blessings of the gospq]
touched with emotion. They thanked God frequently, volubly, and loudly. They would not be quiet. They would get God’s ear, and they would make Him understand how thankful they were. Paul’s Shining Example In the New Testament, Paul more than all other writers is possessed with this spirit of gratitude. His let ters abound with expressions of thank fulness to the saints and for the saints. No kindness, however small, shown him by any person was ever overlooked. He took time out from his prodigious labors to keep caught up on his thanksgiving. He was not only thankful to the saints for their many acts of kindness to him, but also he was thankful to God for the saints themselves and for all they were and are to each other, to God, and to the world. It is profitable to notice the rpany facets in the shining jewel of his gratitude. He was thankful to God for the Romans, “that [their] faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.” ' He thanked God for the Co rinthians, that they were possessed of every gift. He was thankful fbr the fellowship and generosity of the Phi- lippians, for the great love “in the Spirit” which belonged to the Colos- sians, for the ‘‘work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope” re vealed by the Thessalonians. Indeed his heart seemed literally to overflow with tender appreciation of the saints. He was a thankful man. Let us allow the occasion of an other Thanksgiving season to remind us to be thankful. And while the ob ject of our gratitude always must be the all-gracious F a t h e r of lights from whom every good and perfect gift descends, it is well also that we should learn to be thankful to Him for all of His believing children. As suredly they' have faults—for perfec tion is not of this earth—but they are, for all that, His own dear chil dren. In them His glory is bound up, and through them His glory is yet to be revealed to the universe.
n p HANKSGIVING is an Ameri can institution. However deep JL into antiquity its roots may strike, Thanksgiving as we know it in this country is as American as base- bail, . hominy grits, or the hot dog stand. It comes as a glorious climax to that melancholy time which begins deceptively enough with the first bright noddings of the goldenrod, and passes through progressive stages of degeneration where the leaves turn from green to red and gold and on to a soiled and ugly brown. As'the mellow radiance fades out of the days, and the nights grow in creasingly sharper, we Americans be gin to feel a sentimental stirring within us. The farmer glances to ward his flock, lets his eyes r e s t approvingly on the proudest old gob bler, and smiles. The city wife pauses outside the neighborhood market, notes prices chalked in large figures on the plate glass, and makes a féw mental calculations. About this time, the churches become vocally grateful for a lot of things they had Somehow overlooked the rest of the year. The Sunday -morning prayer, which for months had faithfully and patiently, expressed the worshipers’ gratitude for “this beautiful Sabbath morning,” now blossoms out into thanksgiving fo r “ these rich harvests of good things which Thy bounty affords.” We are'getting ready for Thanks giving. • The Spirit of Thanksgiving When the happy day arrives at last, we meet in noisy groups around our tables and proceed to eat everything in sight as an indisputable proof that wé are not devoid of the grace of gratitude. This is our American in stitution of Thanksgiving, and long may it wave. The basic idea behind Thanksgiving is good. Gratitude is a sweet virtue, pleasing to God and pleasant to know among men. The saints have ever been thankful. The men of the Bible were filled with a deep spirit of thankfulness, sincere, tender, and *Pastor of the Christian and Missionary Alliance Tabernacle, Chicago, III.
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker