You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility towards God?- James 4:3-4

The other day I was reading the blog of a friend about thankfulness. I started thinking about how I sometimes don’t feel very thankful for much in my life. If I’m honest, most days I don’t act as a thankful person. But there are days that I am thankful and grateful to God. Sounds good right? It’s not.

The real issue here is not so much that I am thankful to God but rather the motivation behind my thankfulness. Why am I thankful? Most of the time I am thankful because of what he has done for me. I rarely am ever thankful because of who he is. That’s sad because what that means is that in order for me to show my gratitude towards God I have conjure up excitement by focusing more on his gifts rather than on him alone. I am not at all suggesting that we should never be thankful for what God has done for us. I am suggesting that I do think it is a problem when in order for us to get excited and express gratitude towards God we have to first exalt his gifts.  God is only lovely to us when we realize that we are made much of by him.

Psalm 23. It’s a beautiful poem written by David where he uses the metaphor of a shepherd and his sheep to show the unfathomable goodness of God. As many sermons as I’ve heard on Psalm 23, I’ve never heard one that focuses primarily on the Shepherd. Every sermon I have ever heard on this Psalm focuses on the sheep and the great gifts (grace, mercy, loving-kindness) the Shepherd gives to the sheep thus shifting the focus from the Shepherd to the sheep.

I’m not confident that that is what David intends to do. We should be grateful for all the great things that God has done for us but not on the basis of those things alone, but on the basis of who he is. The Psalm exalts the attributes of God and that is what should be celebrated. The attributes of God should be the motive behind our gratitude.

James calls these praying Christians adulterers because they were more interested in the husband’s gifts than they were in him. This is nothing short of idolatry disguised as gratitude. This thanksgiving I have a lot to be thankful for but most of all I am thankful to God simply because he is God.

God help us to magnify your greatness, not on the basis of how it benefits us, but on the pure essence of your character alone!