Tuesday, November 21, 2017

The Holy Spirit and Thanksgiving

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Have you ever noticed the connection between thanksgiving and the Holy Spirit? Thanksgiving is trinitarian. Thanksgiving flows to God the Father, through God the Son, from the Holy Spirit.

In Eph. 5:18-21 we read, “18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, 19 addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, 20 giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Paul gives us an interesting analogy, comparing the filling of the Holy Spirit in a believer’ life, with a person who has come under the influence of alcohol. The analogy goes something like this—what the influence of alcohol does to the body negatively, the influence of the Spirit does for the believer positively. While alcohol is a depressant, the Spirit is an enabler. Drunkenness has side effects—slurred speech, slowed reaction time, confusion—and in the same way, being filled with the Spirit has side effects—singing, praising, transformation and thanksgiving!    

Why does the Spirit of God produce thanksgiving? Because according to Gal. 5:22 one of the fruits of the Spirit is joy. Moreover, Jesus reiterated in John 15:10-11, “10 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit . . . 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”

My son Daniel is an adventurous four-year-old. When I am out in the garden working he likes to be there right alongside helping in his own way. If I have the garden hose out watering the plants he always comes us with his plastic bucket and he says, “Fill me too Daddy!” So, I fill up his little bucket and off he goes to make mud. What is funny is watching him try to carry that bucket full of water. He can hardly carry it without sloshing and splashing water along the way. Then when he’s done he comes back and says it again, “Fill me too Daddy!”

That’s the way the Spirit of God works in us. We can come to the Heavenly Father in worship and say, “Fill me too Daddy!” and God fills our little thimble with His Pacific Ocean sized reservoir of joy. We can never exhaust His endless supply. And as we go about our lives the super-abundant joy of God is meant to spill over and touch others.  

G.K Chesterton remarks at the end of his book Orthodoxy, “Joy, which is the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian.”[1] Joy and thanksgiving go together like turkey and dressing and they are signs that the Holy Spirit calls your heart home. -DM  



[1] G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (Mineola, NY: Dover, 2004), 153. 

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