Thankfulness and Godliness … (November 2021 Update)
Over the last couple of months, I have been participating in a study of Jerry Bridge’s Respectable Sins with a group of guys. It’s a great book! But this past week, we studied two chapters that I thought I would do fairly well with – ungodliness and unthankfulness. I tend to think of myself as a fairly “godly” person (in a humble way, of course) and I am usually very thankful for all that God gives me.
But, as I read the chapters, I discovered that those two sins had become “respectable” for me too. Bridges defines “ungodliness” as a failure to recognize and depend on God at all times. I quickly realized that I usually recognize the Lord in spiritual matters but often leave Him out of my thinking in daily, regular issues and work. Ungodliness is not wickedness – but just failing to recognize God and depend on Him for everything. My previous assessment of my own godliness quickly crumbled to the ground.
When I began the chapter on “Unthankfulness,” I felt more secure because I am very grateful for all the Lord gives me. In the first half of the chapter, I felt pretty good about being a thankful person as Bridges reminded us that we need to be thankful for all the Lord has given us. But … halfway through the chapter, Bridges switched from being thankful for what God has given us to being thankful whenever things do not turn out the way we want. Ouch! That hit home and I immediately saw that I needed to repent of my unthankfulness too.
Godliness and Thankfulness go together. A godly person sees that he needs the Lord in every situation and learns to depend upon Him for everything. The ungodly live as though God does not exist – even if they believe that He does exist! The truly thankful person is not just grateful for the good things God gives. He recognizes that God is in every situation (godliness) and therefore he is able to give thanks even when things do not go according to his plans and wishes. A godly man is truly a thankful man.
This brought me back to some thoughts from Thomas Watson in his book, The Godly Man’s Picture Drawn with a Scripture Pencil. As I re-read this Puritan classic, I was reminded that godliness and thanksgiving do go together and that I cannot really be a godly man without being a thankful man too. Here are some insights from Thomas Watson to meditate on this Thanksgiving.
1. Praise and Thanksgiving is a saint-like work. We find in Scripture that the godly are still called upon to praise God: “ye that fear the Lord, bless the Lord” (Psa. 135:20). “Let the saints be joyful in glory: let the high praises of God be in their mouth” (Psa. 149:5,6). Praise is a work proper to a saint…. Praise and thanksgiving is the work of heaven and he begins that work here which he will always be doing in heaven. The Jews have a saying – the world subsists by three things: the law, the worship of God and thankfulness. As if where thankfulness was missing, one of the pillars of the world had been taken away and it was ready to fall. The Hebrew word for “praise” comes from a root that signifies “to shoot up.” The godly man sends up his praises like a volley of shots towards heaven. David was modeled after God’s heart and how melodiously he warbled out God’s praises! Therefore, he was called “the sweet psalmist of Israel” (2 Sam. 23:1). Take a Christian at his worst, yet he is thankful.
2. Thanksgiving is a more noble part of God’s worship. Our wants may send us to prayer, but it takes a truly honest heart to bless God. The raven cries; the lark sings. In petition, we act like men; in thanksgiving, we act like angels.
3. Thanksgiving is a God-exalting work. “Whosoever offereth praise glorifieth me” (Psalm 50:23). Though nothing can add the least mite to God’s essential glory, yet praise exalts him in the eyes of others. Praise is a setting forth of God’s honor, a lifting up of his name, a displaying of the trophy of his goodness, a proclaiming of his excellence, a spreading of his renown, a breaking open of the box of ointment, whereby the sweet savor and perfume of God’s name is sent abroad into the world.
4. Praise as a more distinguishing work. By this, a Christian excels all the infernal spirits. Do you talk of God? So can the devil; he brought Scripture to Christ. Do you profess religion? So can the devil; he transforms himself into an angel of light. Do you fast? He never eats. Do you believe? The devils have a faith of assent; they believe, and tremble (James 2:19). But as Moses worked such a miracle as none of the magicians could reproduce, so here is a work Christians may be doing, which none of the devils can do, and that is the work of thanksgiving.
Question: How may we know whether we are rightly thankful?
Answer 1: When we are careful to register [remember] God’s mercy: Physicians say that the memory is the first thing that decays. It is true in spiritual matters: “They soon forgot his works” (Psalm 106:13). A godly man enters his mercies, as a physician does his remedies, in a book, so that they may not be lost. Mercies are jewels that should be locked up. A child of God keeps two books always by him: one to write his sins in, so that he may be humble; the other to write his mercies in, so that he may be thankful.
Answer 2: We are rightly thankful when our hearts are the chief instrument in the music of praise: “I will praise the Lord with my whole heart” (Psalm 111:1). David would tune not only his violin [harp], but also his heart. If the heart does not join with the tongue, there can be no comfort. Where the heart is not engaged, the parrot is as good a chorister as the Christian. [We need to be sure that our thanksgiving is not just from our lips but really from our hearts!].
Answer 3: We are rightly thankful when the favors which we receive endear our love to God the more. David’s miraculous preservation from death drew forth his love to God: “I love the Lord” (Psalm 116:1). It is one thing to love our mercies; it is another thing to love the Lord. Many love their deliverance but not their deliverer. God is to be loved more than his mercies.
Answer 4: We are rightly thankful when, in giving our praise to God, we take all worthiness from ourselves: Jacob said: “I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies thou hast showed unto thy servant” (Genesis 32:10) …. Mephibosheth bowed himself and said, “What is thy servant, that thou shouldest look upon such a dead dog as I am?” (2 Sam. 9:8). So, when a thankful Christian makes a survey of his blessings and [he] sees how much he enjoys that others better than he lack, he says, “Lord, what am I, a dead dog, that free grace should look upon me, and that thou shouldest crown me with such loving kindness?”
Answer 5: We are rightly thankful when we put God’s mercy to good use. We repay God’s blessings with service. The Lord gives us health, and we spend and are spent for Christ (2 Cor. 12:15). He gives us an estate, and we honor the Lord with our substance (Prov. 3:9). He gives us children, and we dedicate them to God and educate them for God. We do not bury our talents but trade them. This is to put our mercies to good use. A gracious heart is like a piece of good ground that, having received the seed of mercy, produces a crop of obedience.
Answer 6: We are rightly thankful when we can have our hearts more enlarged for spiritual than for temporal mercies: “Blessed be God, who bath blessed us with all spiritual blessings” (Eph. 1:3). A godly man blesses God more for a fruitful heart than a full crop. He is more thankful for Christ than for a kingdom. Socrates was wont to say that he loved the king’s smile more than his gold. A pious heart is more thankful for a smile of God’s face than he would be for the gold of the Indies.
Answer 7: We are rightly thankful when mercy is a spur to duty. It causes a spirit of activity for God. Mercy is not like the sun to the fire, to dull it, but like oil to the wheel, to make it run faster. David wisely argues from mercy to duty: “Thou have delivered my soul from death. I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living” (Psalm 116:8,9). It was a dying of Bernard, “Lord, I have two mites, a soul and a body, and I give them both to thee.”
Answer 8: We are rightly thankful when we motivate others to this angelic work of praise. David does not only wish to bless God himself but calls upon others to do so: “Praise ye the Lord” (Psalm 111:1). The sweetest music is that which is in unison. When many saints join together in unison, then they make heaven ring with their praises….
Answer 9: We are rightly thankful when we not only speak God’s praise but also live his praise. It is called an expression of gratitude. We give thanks when we live thanks. Such as are mirrors of mercy should be patterns of piety. “Upon Mount Zion shall be deliverance, and there shall be holiness” (Obad. 17). To give God oral praise and dishonor him in our lives is to commit a barbarism in religion and is to be like those Jews who bowed the knee to Christ and then spat on him (Mark 15:19).
Answer 10: We are rightly thankful when we propagate God’s praises to posterity. We tell our children what God has done for us; in such a want, he supplied us; from such a sickness, he raised us up; in such a temptation, he helped us. “O God, our fathers have told us, what work thou didst in their days, in the times of old” (Psalm 44:1). By transmitting our experiences to our children, God’s name is eternalized, and his mercies will bring forth a plentiful crop of praise when we have gone.
Thanksgiving is a wonderful time each year to reflect on all that the Lord has done for us. But as you celebrate this season, ask yourself if you are really godly and thankful. Because the two go together. A godly man is a thankful man. And a thankful man recognizes the hand of God even in the most difficult of situations. That’s why Job was able to say, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” He was a godly man who was thankful for the Lord’s presence in every situation – even in the worse. That’s real thanksgiving!
Teaching Ministry ….
Last month was busy with teaching and also with grading from my September class and trying to get ready for my two November classes! In October, I taught a class on Evangelism at Kyiv Theological Seminary. We had students in-class as well as a number of students participating online, joining us through Zoom for each session. Every morning, we worked on the theology of evangelism and took time to look at how Jesus and the apostles did evangelism compared to our methods today. This was quite an eye-opener for most of the students. Every afternoon, we discussed some practical aspects of evangelism and even participated in some street evangelism using religious surveys – something most of these students have never done. We also talked about friendship evangelism and apologetics. Students are working on their post-class assignments now.
November will be especially hard. I will be teaching two classes. First, I will be teaching Church History at Kyiv Theological Seminary. I finish this class on Friday afternoon and head to Lviv by train on Saturday morning. There I will be teaching a class on Worship and Prayer. Be praying for me. This is a lot of work, and I will have no time to rest between classes. Also be praying that I will have no complications with train travel. Currently Ukraine is in a severe lockdown that requires a Covid passport to be able to travel. They currently allow non-vaccinated people to travel only by taking the Covid test within 24 hours of travel. So I will be scrambling to get these tests both coming and going to teach in Lviv.
Family Time ….
We are continuing to Homeschool Kristina and Nadia, and we are loving it. We just finished learning about Canada, and we have started on South America. They love learning about the geography and animals from these different continents. We also spent time outside working on cleaning up the garden, trimming trees and getting our final apple harvest ready for winter storage.
In October, we took our annual trip to Lviv for a family break, and we had a great time! We traveled by train in a sleeper car, which is always a treat in itself for the girls! In Lviv, I had a couple meetings with people at the seminary and we were also able to visit the church of one of my students on Sunday to hear him preach a very good expository sermon on Philippians 2:5-13!
In Lviv, the girls got to do many things, including making cookies and making soap. We also took a ride around town in a horse-drawn carriage and got to go to a number of special restaurants. We had a great time but came back exhausted and the girls were both sick for a week afterwards. But the trip was worth it, and the break from classes was much needed!
We are also continuing to read The Long Winter from the Little House on the Prairie series. It is hard to believe the difficulties that they (and the town) endured when they were hit by blizzard after blizzard that lasted almost 7 months! Eating nothing but brown bread and tea and a few potatoes for months helped them to survive. Even through it all, they found ways to enjoy the life that the Lord had given them. It makes all our hardships seem very light compared to theirs!
On October 21st, Kyiv moved into what is called the “red zone” for Covid lockdowns and on November 1, those were increased even more. It is now not possible to travel by any public transportation or enter most businesses without a Covid passport. Because of the quarantine, schools have been cancelled and so have the dance, piano and flute lessons for our girls. But, even with lockdowns, we still manage to have a great time being together!
Katya’s mother and grandmother look like they will be approved to immigrate to the United States. This will be a big blessing for them and also a help for us. We are hoping to return to the US in a couple of years, but we would not be comfortable leaving them here in Ukraine because they have no other family members to care for them if we left. They still have health examines to pass but we think they should do okay. If they are approved, we will have to help them with getting ready to move to the US.
We also have an aunt with Altheimer’s that we are trying to help care for. So, we would appreciate your prayers for her health, and also for wisdom and peace about a lot of decisions that will need to be made for her in the coming months. We need to make sure she is cared for when Katya’s mom and grandmother immigrate and then we are hoping to return to the states in a couple years. So we need to find a place that will provide good care when we are not in Ukraine to care for her. Be praying for these important decisions!
Health Issues …
My health continues to improve. I still have some stomach/colon issues and so we are changing medication to hopefully correct that. It is very frustrating, but I do see a lot of progress. However, my blood counts are very much improved! I am also trying to work on some cardiac rehab (on my own) and I’m seeing some improvement there also. Be praying for me this fall that I can stay healthy so my body can recover from all the trauma that it has been through the last couple of years. Also, pray that I can be protected from COVID. It might not be safe for me to take the vaccine because I have had 2 extended bouts with pericarditis last year and this is one of the serious side-effects of the vaccines. But it is getting harder and harder to do anything or go anywhere without the vaccine passport. And, at present, there are no exemptions allowed. Pray for wisdom for us about these decisions and also for protection.
Pray for Ukraine ….
Please continue to pray for Ukraine. Once again, Putin has increased the number of troops and tanks on the Ukrainian border. He has done this so many times that many think it is just another bluff to get Ukraine to agree to his terms. But we never know. Please pray for peace and for our soldiers and graduates serving near the front lines that the gospel will be able to go forth freely in these areas.
We cannot begin to express our gratitude for your support for all of these years. We realize every day that we could not do this work without your prayers and support. As we approach Thanksgiving, we want you to know that we are especially thankful for you and for all you do for us! Your generosity gives us the freedom to be here preparing future generations of Ukrainians to share the gospel and shepherd the churches. Thank you so much for your continued partnership!
By His Grace,
Jim, Katya, Kristina, and Nadia
If you missed previous updates or just want to read some short theological reflections, you can find these at our website at https://teachingresources.org/ .
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