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Enter His Gates with Thanksgiving

Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! Psalm 100:4 ESV

A smile lurks at the corners of my eyes when I ponder our opening scripture.

As a child I memorized Psalm 100 in song, an upbeat chorus proclaiming the truths of the verses and then breaking into a refrain. “Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, thank you, Jesus…Praise God… Thank you, Jesus…”

I still can’t read the words without inserting them into the tune. I guess there’s something to be said about the power of a melody. After almost 40 years, I can still remember the whole Psalm.

I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. Psalm 119:11

Granted, Psalm 100 only has five verses. But when I learned them, I was only six.

Still, just knowing the words won’t do anything for me if I don’t understand them and live by them. So what does Psalm 100 really teach us?

Let’s take a few moments to read it together, pondering its truths. After all, it bears the subtitle A Psalm for Giving Thanks and tomorrow is Thanksgiving. It may help us shift our gratitude in the right direction.

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness!

Come into his presence with singing! Know that the Lord, he is God!

It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise!

Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the Lord is good;

his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

Oh, how I love the Word of God! My soul yearns for truth and my heart swells when I hear it. Celebrate with me a few of the truths listed here.

  • We can know without doubt that the Lord is God
  • He made us, and we are His… we belong to Him
  • He is good… we needn’t fear or mistrust His intentions for us
  • His steadfast love endures… forever
  • He is faithful… not just to some, but to all generations

Those are some things worth praising! But now I want to settle in on the truth revealed in verse 4.

  • We enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise.

Listen carefully, dear one. You and I need the presence of the Living God. More than anything else we want in life, we want God’s presence—whether we realize it yet or not.

My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. Psalm 84:2

Beloved, the blessings of God flow through the presence of God. And here’s what Psalm 100:4 proclaims: We enter the presence of God with thanksgiving and praise.

Don’t miss this, dear one. A heart of gratitude and praise toward God ushers us through His gates and into His presence.

Ingratitude, on the other hand, separates us from Him.

You may be thinking, I don’t have much to be thankful for. Perhaps your circumstances seem pretty hopeless and all your hardened heart will allow you to see right now is your lack.

What if choosing gratitude anyway could draw you into His presence and become the catalyst to change your circumstances? What if praising God for the truths we discovered today in Psalm 100 and asking Him to empower you to believe them could even alter your day?

Consider Paul’s command about prayer from Philippians 4:6.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Did you notice that every request we take to God in prayer must be made with thanksgiving? Perhaps it’s because thanksgiving ushers us through His gates and into His courts. But look at the promise given when we approach God that way.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:7

Peace is what you really seek, dear one. A heart at rest. Thanksgiving sets you on that path.

May this Thanksgiving be more than a holiday. May you pass through the gate and encounter the presence of God.

The God of Redemption

And they sang a new song: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.”  Revelation 5:9

Last week we explored God’s power over creation. Whatever God desires, He simply speaks, and it becomes so.

Jesus—the Word made flesh—carries all of God’s authority and power.

The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. Hebrews 1:3

When Jesus walked the dusty roads of Galilee, creation knew its Master. Water became wine at His word (John 2:9). Empty nets filled with fish at His command (Luke 5:5-6). Bread multiplied as He blessed and broke it (Matthew 14:19-20). And when a boat carrying Jesus and His Disciples tossed about on a stormy sea, Jesus revealed His authority over the wind and the waves.

Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm. The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!”         Matthew 8:26-27

He wasn’t just man. He was God.

Jesus reigns as Lord over all creation, and creation bows. I wonder if when Jesus walked on water He simply told the waters not to let Him sink. I imagine creation’s symphony of praise lifting to His throne delights His heart. And I suspect the contrast of man’s rejection and rebellion wounds Him with a piercing ache.

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.  John 1:10-11

How thankful I am that above all else, forgiveness and love flow from God’s heart toward humanity. Anger could have been justifiably hurled from the mouth of Christ in response to man’s hatred. He who formed them from the dust could have called upon fire to consume them then and there. He could’ve commanded their hearts to stop beating and their bodies would have simply collapsed to the earth.

But Jesus didn’t speak death over His accusers; He offered life. Though they rejected Him, He refused to reject them. Consider Jesus’ words as His body hung broken and bleeding, nailed to a cross by the very people He came to save.

Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”  Luke 23:34

That’s a curious thought. Mankind rejected the lordship of Jesus Christ, preferring to beat and execute Him rather than exalt Him within their hearts. Yet Jesus offered forgiveness claiming, “they don’t know . . . they don’t understand.”

Jesus understood what humanity could not yet see. Mankind wasn’t His enemy, but rather the object of His devotion. His foe was the one who had enslaved their hearts with sin and blinded them to the truth.

The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 2 Corinthians 4:4

At the dawn of creation, man was one with his Maker. The Spirit of God dwelled within Him and man lived free from the burden of sin and its trappings amid the safety of perfect love.

Then Adam and Eve opened their minds to consider the whispers of the deceiver instead of remaining on the sure foundation of God’s truth. Their Maker had told them “. . . you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die” (Genesis 2:17).

Satan offered them an alternative in direct opposition to God’s truth. “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman (Genesis 3:4).

Sadly, they chose to trust the voice of the serpent over the voice of the One who had given them life. Desires aroused by possibility took root and overshadowed truth. They had not known evil. They didn’t understand how desperately they should fear it. They simply liked the idea of being like God. So they ate . . . and in that moment, they rejected the Lordship of their Creator and unwittingly submitted themselves to a new lord. God’s Spirit departed from man and evil took its place. They discovered the terrifying reality of Romans 6:16,

Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?

If only the enemy had given full disclosure. But that’s not his way. His realm is darkness. And his hatred of God set his primary objective squarely on that which God loves most: humanity. He stole the object of God’s affection as his own, enslaving our hearts with sin. He’s been manipulating and destroying us ever since, his deceitful lies convincing us we want him to.

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!  Romans 7:24-25

Jesus loves you enough to die so you can live free.

And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.  Colossians 2:15

Our penalty has been paid and man’s bondage to sin is broken. Jesus has come, “to say to the captives, ‘Come out,’ and to those in darkness, ‘Be free!’” (Isaiah 49:9). He has released His Spirit to once again enter the heart of man and restore our fellowship with God.

Jesus has reclaimed your right to choose who will reign within your heart.

Who will you choose, beloved? Who will you trust with your tomorrows? Will you continue to walk the path of darkness, blindly following the destructive desires of your enslaved heart (Jeremiah 17:9)? Or will you join creation’s song and allow The LORD Our Righteousness (Jeremiah 23:6) to ascend His throne within you?

The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. Romans 8:19

Beloved of God, will you be counted among them?