Before We Gather — Answering The Call - A Redeeming The Time Blog

Before We Gather

By Grant Gaines

Thanksgiving is – no surprise here – a time of thanksgiving as we reflect on a certain event, person, or moment that we are grateful for. As Christians, this idea of thankfulness and reflection are nothing new nor are they something that we are to only partake in every fourth Thursday in November every year. Rather, we are instructed over and over again to give thanks to the Lord and to remember His love for us.

One of the most well-known instance of this command is during the Last Supper when Jesus commanded His disciples (including those who would later follow Him – you and me) to remember His sacrifice every time they broke bread and drank wine. 1 Corinthians 11:23-25 (NIV) records a recap of this conversation when it says:

“The Lord Jesus, on the night He was betrayed, took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, ‘This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ In the same way, after supper He took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of Me.'”

It’s from this passage that nearly every church will pass out the communion elements at some point throughout the year. Some churches do this every week while some only do it once a year. However, the frequency of how often your church participates in this act of communion isn’t nearly as important as how often you participate in this act of thankfulness and reflection.

You see, bread and wine were basically the “chips and salsa” of the Jewish culture – they were eaten at nearly every single meal. So when Jesus commanded His followers to remember Him and His sacrifice every time they took the bread and wine, it wouldn’t make sense that He was simply talking about remembering Him only once every week, once a quarter, or once a year, would it? Rather, given the fact that these elements were eaten during almost every meal, it seems more likely that Jesus was commanding His followers to pause and reflect with an attitude of thankfulness every time they sat down to eat.

With that in mind, what a great opportunity we have this Thanksgiving to pause before we dive into the Turkey, stuffing, and gravy to take a moment to thank the Lord for giving us His Son, Jesus. Isn’t that the entire purpose of giving this holiday the name “Thanksgiving”? We are to be THANKFUL for Him GIVING us redemption through the sacrifice of His Son.

What does this thankfulness look like? What would really bless the Lord? Well 1 Samuel 15:22 (NIV) says that the Lord isn’t simply looking for a thankfulness that comes from lip service, but a lifestyle that aligns with His commandments – “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.”

That being said, I want to draw our attention to a command that Jesus gave His followers in Matthew 5:23-24 that revolves around one of the Lord’s favorite themes – unity. In these verses, Jesus tells His followers that whenever they are offering a gift of any kind to the Lord (including the gift of thanksgiving like we just discussed) but then remember that they are in conflict with or have wronged someone else, they should first go and be reconciled (or “made right”) with that person before offering that gift to the Lord.

With that verse in mind, we all have a little soul searching to do as we approach Thursday, don’t we? If our goal is to offer the Lord a gift of thanksgiving that He actually desires, then we must all pause for a moment and ask God to reveal to us anyone that we need to be reconciled with. According to Matthew 5:23-24, this act of reconciliation is so crucial that if we fail to have it in our relationships with others, the Lord doesn’t want anything to do with our gifts of time, money, and certainly not of thankfulness. The worth of our sacrifice to the Lord all rides and dies with the level of our unity towards others. It’s certainly not a fun process, but in God’s eyes, obeying Him through walking in unity is the greatest gift we could ever give Him.

Don’t let this Thanksgiving slip away from you and your family without taking time to truly give Him the thanks He deserves as we walk in unity with the ones He came to die for.

Do you need to have a conversation with anyone this week?