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Giving Thanks
By daniel | May 30, 2004
Hi,
I was working through the passage we examined Sunday, Ephesians 5:1-4, and something in verse four struck me as profoundly significant. I thought I?d share it with you.
Verse four reads, “?and there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.” The first time I read that I just flew right over the “giving of thanks” part. Later, when I finally saw it, it rankled a bit.
It took me back to my formative years in religious legalism. I remembered deeply dissatisfied, angry, bitter people spouting, “Thank the Lord, brother!” and “Praise Jesus!” (pronounced ?Praaiizzze Jeeeezus!?), never really meaning a word of it. It was religious lingo, reserved for religious interaction and pious performance, for keeping up appearances before the other angry, bitter religious pretenders.
Did that sound harsh? Sorry. That?s exactly the way I remember it, but it?s probably not quite accurate. What is accurate is the hollowness of saying thanks when you mean I hate my life.
So, I went back to the verse and it was still there, “?but rather giving of thanks.” I mulled and pondered and mulled some more, asking myself what the thought might be behind Paul?s directive contrast ? do not use speech for these base reasons, but rather use speech to articulate gratitude. And then I got it.
Romans 8:6 says, “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace?.” When I use speech in the ways described in Ephesians 5:4 (filthy, coarse or silly speech) I set my audience?s mind on the flesh. In essence, I am perpetuating the death that is the product of the sin in their members. At best, with the silly talk, I am setting their mind on the merely natural, on the empty, which also perpetuates the rot. For the mind set on the flesh is death.
But, when I articulate genuine gratitude for God?s action in my life, when I simply testify to the path grace is taking in me, without decoration or justification, I set my audience?s mind on God, the same God who has taken up active residence in their spirits as well. In this way I nurture and augment the life of God in them, and I cultivate their experience of peace with Him and peace with me, since it becomes obvious that we are all on the same side. For the mind set on the spirit is life and peace.
There are other legitimate and important ways I can set your mind on the spirit. I can teach. I can prophesy (in the Biblical sense). I can ask helpful questions like, “What are you learning lately?” or “What?s up with you and Jesus?” But when I simply tell a story of grace successfully embraced, of God?s action in my life in real time and a real place, I am genuine and human in an obvious and simple way. When I attach a “Thanks, God” to it I am vulnerable, and I think we just prayed together.
And that?s really it. The job of the saint is to cultivate the connections between other saints and God, and between saints themselves. We are responsible to abide in Christ and to have Christ?s words abiding in us, as John 15 teaches us. Since we are our brothers? keepers, we are also responsible to see to one another?s abiding. To do that we must steadily direct our fellow-saints? attention to God ? not just to God-the-concept or God-the-theological, but to God-the-Active in me and in you. Thus, we must put away the questionable comments and the inane, insecure babble, and we must honestly, humanly testify to grace and sprinkle it with gratitude.
And that is how you use your mouth to walk in love. I love you. Enjoy God this week and tell someone about it. Better, enjoy God, track His activity in your life this week, go to cell, and before anyone asks you, open up and tell your little story of grace. I dare you. Don?t be a sissy; be a saint.
Grateful for my life with you,
Virgil
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