With the Thanksgiving holiday just around the corner, many of us will gather with family and friends to share a meal and reflect on the good things in our lives. It is a simple holiday compared to others. It does not come with a lot of baggage, marketing campaigns, or pressure to spend inordinate amounts of money. It just sets aside a day to remember what we have and to be thankful.
But here is a question: why do we need a holiday to remind us to be thankful? If thankfulness is so basic and so obvious, why do we so often forget it? The truth is, we live in a world that is very often thankless, and if we are honest, we all know this struggle within ourselves. We need to work at giving thanks. We need reminders. And the Bible gives them to us over and over again.
The Apostle Paul describes the heart of the problem in Romans 1:21: “For although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.” That is the indictment. Humanity has turned away from God, refusing to honor Him or give Him thanks. Without Christ, our hearts are darkened and we do not give the thanks that we should.
Without God, people are left to make sense of life in other ways. Some will say it is just luck or chance, and so there is no one to ultimately thank. Others believe everything is fixed by fate, but again there is no personal God behind it. And many simply give themselves the credit, convinced their success is the result of their own strength and skill. But none of that produces genuine thankfulness. It either becomes a shallow expression that does not last, or it turns into bitterness when life does not go as planned.
That is the reality of life apart from Christ. But for the Christian, things are different. We know who God is, and we know where our thanks belong. We are given a clear picture of this in Luke 7:36–50.
Jesus was invited to dinner by Simon the Pharisee (Luke 7:36). As they ate, a woman known in the city for her sinful life came in. Overcome with emotion, she wept at His feet, washing them with her tears, wiping them with her hair, kissing them, and pouring out costly perfume (Luke 7:37–38). It was an uncomfortable scene, even offensive to some who were present.
Simon’s reaction tells us a lot. He silently questioned Jesus. If He were truly a prophet, surely He would know what kind of woman this was. Surely He would not let her touch Him (Luke 7:39). But Jesus knew Simon’s thoughts and told him a parable. Two men owed money. One owed five hundred denarii, the other fifty. Neither could pay, and both were forgiven. Which of them will love him more? Simon answered, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven” (Luke 7:41–43). Jesus told him he was right. Then He pointed to the woman’s actions as the proof of a heart overflowing with love because she knew she had been forgiven much (Luke 7:44–47).
This is a striking contrast. Simon had invited Jesus into his home but offered no water for His feet, no kiss of greeting, no oil for His head (Luke 7:44–46). His heart was proud and unthankful. He did not see his debt and he did not see the Savior. Outwardly religious, but inwardly cold.
The woman, on the other hand, saw her sin clearly. She knew her need, and she saw that Jesus was the answer. She held nothing back in her gratitude. Her tears, her perfume, her affection were all poured out freely. She was not calculating what others thought of her. She was moved by grace and responded with thankfulness that overflowed into worship.
This is what true thanksgiving looks like. It is not a polite word at the dinner table or a general feeling that things have gone well. It is not thanking fate or luck or ourselves. True thanksgiving comes when we realize the depth of our sin and the greatness of God’s mercy in Christ. When we see who Jesus is and what He has done for us, our response is love and gratitude that cannot be contained.
That is why Paul can command believers in 1 Thessalonians 5:18 to “give thanks in everything, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Paul is not telling us to pretend that everything that happens to us is good. He is reminding us that in every circumstance God is present, faithful, and working for our ultimate good in Christ. That is why we can give thanks. In Ephesians 5:20, Paul calls us to be “always giving thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:20). Thanksgiving is not meant to be seasonal, but to be a way of life.
Of course, this does not come naturally. We still live in a fallen world. We still wrestle with sin and distraction. That is why we need reminders. That is why we return again and again to passages like Luke 7. We need to see ourselves in that woman. We need to remember that our debt was real, and it was greater than we could ever repay. We also need to remember that Jesus is the one who has cancelled that debt and given us peace with God (Luke 7:48–50).
As we come to this Thanksgiving season, enjoy the meal and the gathering of family. Take time to remember the blessings of this past year. But let your gratitude go deeper than the holiday. Let it flow from the cross. Like the woman who fell at Jesus’ feet, may our lives be marked by thankfulness that holds nothing back.
Because for the Christian, thanksgiving is not just a holiday. It is the overflow of a heart that knows it has been forgiven.
Thessalon ON