Episode 653: TLP 653: Celebrate God with Your Family this Thanksgiving

Gratitude Begins by Recognizing the Giver

I won't be thankful for the cookies on the counter unless I can conclude that someone baked them, put them there, and intends for me to enjoy them. Parenting isn't about us. In fact, parenting isn't even about our kids.

Parenting is just one way Christian dads and moms are to worship God. So welcome to the Truth, Love, Parent podcast, where we train dads and moms to give God the preeminence in their parenting. Welcome back.

Today's episode will be a little shorter than usual. Listen, I know, we're all ramping up for the holidays, and there's a possibility that many people have already given up listening to podcasts this time of year.

So we're going to try to keep it short. But since what we're talking about is so important, there will be plenty of additional resources to help you out in the event that you want to do some more listening.

Celebrating God Beyond the Holiday Traditions

So let's get started. Of all the resources I've created for the Truth, Love, Family community, a couple rise to the top as being my favorites. I absolutely love my short 100-page book called Quit, How to Stop Family Strife for Good.

It distills so much of our content over the years and applies it directly to an unavoidable issue in our home, strife. Obviously, I love the podcast episodes. Those have been my passion over these past 10 years, and I've dedicated so many hours to putting out that content.

But one of my absolute favorite tools, more so than the communication house or the insight lists, is the year-long Celebration of God. Now some of you have never heard of that resource. Some of you may think it's just another podcast, and some of you know a lot about it, but it started as a unique tool just for the TLP family.

The story goes that my kids were very young, but we had celebrated a number of the major holidays with them over a couple years, especially Christmas, like most professing Christians I know. Yes, we talked about God.

Yes, we read the Christmas story from year to year. Yes, we sang sacred Christmas music. But I realized something about myself one year that changed the way I viewed the holiday and then the way that I taught my kids to celebrate it.

I realized that the things I liked most about the holiday were all good things, but they weren't God. It's not that I don't like the sacred realities. It wasn't that I was pursuing things that were inherently wicked.

I wasn't trying to take Christ out of Christmas. It's just that the things I loved the most, the things that brought me the most joy and comfort and warmth, the things about which I got really excited and had absolutely nothing to do with God, and sometimes at my worst, the sacred truths were the things to acknowledge and then move past to get to the really fun things.

The lights and songs and food and family and games and vacations and movies, and the list goes on. Wow, Aaron, I didn't realize you were so unspiritual. Well, perhaps you've never experienced what I did.

Perhaps you're more spiritual than I was, but I believe for many reasons that there are a lot of Christians out there struggling in the exact same way. But maybe you haven't realized it yet. And I came to the place where I realized I was trying to teach my kids to live every moment for God, but there was this whole holiday season that I was primarily enjoying for my own glory.

And that's when the Holy Spirit started maturing me even more in this particular area. And what I learned during that time of research and study and spiritual growth turned into the year-long celebration of God, a discipleship tool that utilizes the Bible, our holiday calendars, and even the most average moments of the most normal days to equip Christians and their families to know, believe, and celebrate God all year long.

And yes, it did end up becoming its own podcast, which ran for nearly two years, and there's still so much more information I often long to refine and build out and publish, but that will remain patiently simmering in the back burner for the time being.

But the good news for this season is that we already have a bunch of resources in the Truth Loved Parent podcast, the Celebration of God podcast, and the year-long Celebration of God website to get you and your family on the right course for worshiping God better this Thanksgiving.

So definitely check out the description of today's episode to get the links to those resources. I've also included links to my book as well as the Communication House and the Insight List tools if those sounded interesting to you.

Gratitude Requires More Than Liking a Gift

But what I want to do with the balance of our time today is to get you started on the right foot in your thinking about thankfulness and gratitude. In fact, our next episode is also going to be all about the prerequisites to true gratitude.

That's right, it's impossible for us and our kids to truly be grateful in any genuinely meaningful way if other elements are not alive and well in our lives. So today we're going to briefly discuss the most important foundation stone, and then next week we'll discuss the next requirement and ways that your parenting can help teach your kids about gratitude.

Okay, so what's the most important prerequisite for gratitude? Think about this statement, you can't be thankful for something if you're not thankful to someone. You see, I can be happy to see a plate of cookies on the counter, but I won't be thankful for the cookies on the counter unless I conclude that someone baked them, put them there, and intends for me to enjoy them.

I have no reason to say thank you to anyone if they spontaneously generate it on the counter. I have no reason to be grateful if they're not there for me. Gratitude requires an object outside of the blessing and outside of the person receiving it.

My gratitude is not in the cookies, my gratitude is not in me, my gratitude is laid upon the individual that provided the blessing for me. This is a fundamental reality our children need to learn, but how we teach gratitude normally actually unravels that truth.

We talk about being thankful for something instead of being thankful to someone. We put the emphasis on the thing and the fact that I like it, but that's not gratitude, that's not being thankful, that's just being happy, that's being satisfied or comfortable.

I like the cookies, I like the weather, I'm not really thankful for it if I don't acknowledge who did it. I'm not thankful for something until I recognize that the recipient of the gratitude is the person who provided the thing that I like.

This is why gratitude is a misunderstood topic for atheists. They may say something like, I'm thankful for a nice sunny day, but to whom are they thankful? The day? Themselves? The weatherman? Many of them want to be thankful, we were created to be thankful, and so they make up concepts to receive their thanks.

They may be thankful to the universe or to mother earth. Others just use the words happy and thankful interchangeably. They're not actually thankful to anybody and they're not trying to make up somebody to whom to be thankful.

They just say they're thankful for something and it just means that they like it. We need to help our kids recognize that being thankful for something isn't nearly as important as being thankful to someone.

It may be their teacher, their aunt, their parents, or their God, but if they truly are thankful, they need to recognize and hopefully thank that person. Now, in the most basic sense, you can also be thankful to animals.

I'll throw this out there. You can be thankful your dog didn't eat your slippers, even though you forgot to put them away. Right? I mean, in a certain way, the dog kind of makes decisions and it can choose to do what you told it to do or to not do what you told it to do.

But even in that situation, a Christian can be both thankful to the dog, but ultimately far more thankful to God as he's the one who providentially is in control of what that dog does. And we'll talk more about this in a moment.

Gratitude Must Have a Recipient

But with all that said, the single most important starting place for gratitude is this. Number one, gratitude demands a recipient. And number two, gratitude demands the right recipient. True, satisfying, Christ-honoring gratitude will always first and foremost be gratitude to God.

Gratitude Must Ultimately Be Directed to God

It may also include my parents or my teacher or the dog, but it always first and foremost be to God. Romans 121 is a painful revelation of the opposite of this truth. For even though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts and their foolish heart was darkened.

As they rejected the reality of God and started worshiping other things, they did not give thanks. They couldn't be thankful. But in order to truly be grateful to God, there are two other requirements.

Gratitude Requires Knowing Who God Is

Number three, mature gratitude demands that I know who God is. If I don't understand that there is a God or His nature and power, then I have no reason to be thankful to Him. But my God is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-present, all-loving, all-holy, and all-sovereign.

He is providentially working all things for His greatest glory and my greatest good in that I am conformed to His image. If I don't rightly understand who God is, I won't be thankful to Him as I should.

Jeremiah 9, 23 through 24 illustrates this truth. Thus says Yahweh, We and our children need to know and understand the deep and beautiful truths about the Creator. Are we teaching our kids about Him or just letting others do it?

Or maybe not having anyone do it at all? Are we helping our kids see God working in the mundane experiences of life? Are we helping our kids recognize His authority and their responsibility in every decision they make?

In Psalm 145, 3 through 7, we see the importance of teaching people so that they can be thankful. The biblical parents' greatest responsibility is to teach their children about who God is. And if our children don't know God, they can't be grateful to Him.

Gratitude Requires a Relationship with God

But knowing about Him isn't good enough. So, our last point for today, number four, mature gratitude demands that I have a relationship with God. I know a lot about false gods, but I'm not thankful to any of them.

I'm not thankful to the God of the deists or Gnostics. I'm not thankful to Santa Claus for my presence because though I know an awful lot about Him, I don't believe in Him and therefore don't have any relationship with Him.

And the same is true for God. Our kids can't just have head knowledge about God. That knowledge and understanding needs to lead to genuine faith that is the very roots of a saving relationship with the Lord.

And the more I get to know Him and the more I'm conformed to His image, the more thankful I will be to Him. Consider Psalm 100, verses 3 through 4. We are thankful for God making us. We are thankful to be His sheep.

Therefore, we enter into His gates. This is not just flowery language. This is the terminology of a covenant child of God who has a relationship with Him. We are to worship Him with thanksgiving. We're to praise Him and bless His name and give Him thanks because of what we know about Him and the relationship we have with Him.

Abounding in Thanksgiving through Christ

Colossians 3, 17 says, and whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father. We can't even be thankful if we're not thankful through Christ having given us new life.

The thanks has a recipient and that recipient is God the Father. So, in conclusion, let's meditate on Colossians 2, 6, and 7. Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and built up in Him, and having been established in your faith just as you were instructed, and abounding with thanksgiving.

If we and our families are going to abound in thanksgiving, we need to receive Christ Jesus the Lord and walk in Him. And I pray that you will teach your kids to celebrate God this thanksgiving by helping them understand the nature of gratitude, the reality of God, and by helping them have and grow in their relationship with Him.

Teaching Children to Thank the Giver

Also, try something different around the thanksgiving table this year. Instead of asking what you're thankful for, ask to whom you are thankful. Of course, you can say, what are you thankful for? And then when they tell you, say, and to whom are you thankful for that?

Or, I guess, as most people would say it, and who are you thankful to? Either way, it's the same question. Ask them. See if they actually understand that there is somebody who has provided that. I also hope that you will share this episode.

Many biblical families are looking for encouragement this time of year, and social media is a great place to share these episodes where others will find it. And you should also listen to the other thanksgiving episodes linked in the description and share them too.

And of course, you can always email us at counselor at truthloveparent .com or leave a voicemail at 828 -423 -0894 if you need personalized help in knowing God and how His truth should impact our lives for positive Christ-honoring change.

And then please join us next week to learn about another very important prerequisite to gratitude. I'll see you then. Truth Love Parent is part of the Evermind Ministries family and is dedicated to helping you worship God through your parenting.

So join us next time as we study God's Word to learn how to parent our children for life and godliness. And remember that TLP is a listener-supported ministry. You can visit truthloveparent .com forward slash donate to learn more.