February 25

Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name. - Psalms 103:1.

THERE are three things which should be regarded by us as a stimulus to gratitude. The first is to dwell upon the blessings we have received. We are affected by mercies; and it is well we are. We should dwell upon the suitableness of them,-their importance and value. Take the blessing of deliverance from all our spiritual enemies. Let us ask ourselves, What would have been the consequence if I had been left a victim of sin, or of the world, or death, or the grave? What do I owe to that Saviour who rescued me?

The second is to get an increasing sense of our own unworthiness. We shall always find that gratitude deepens humility, and that proud people are ungrateful for whatever is done for them: they consider it as only doing a duty, not conferring a favour. What reward have their benefactors? But take a man who is humble, and he will in the same proportion be thankful. When we are convinced that we are unworthy of all God’s mercies, when we look not only to years of unregeneracy, but to years of conversion,-to years since we have known God, or rather “been known of him,”-what will be our language? “Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift!”

Then, Thirdly, We should be greatly concerned to get an assurance of our own interest in the blessedness of the Lord. Yes, it will touch the spring of all our feelings and affections, when we can say, with David, “I love the Lord, because he hath heard the voice of my supplication;” or, as he says in the eighteenth Psalm, “I will love thee, O Lord my strength. The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my strength in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.” Thus expressing his property in God nine times in one verse; and no wonder, therefore, that he should say, “I love thee, O Lord.” It was thus that Peter, joining himself with the Christians of his day, could say, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you.”

Thus, therefore, we should walk before him “in newness of life;” thus we should ask continually, “What wilt thou have me to do?” Thus by his mercies we should “present our bodies a living sacrifice.”

Oh! it well becomes Christians to be thankful. It is a pleasant thing to give thanks to the Lord. This is a part of heaven; it is the beginning of heaven, and that which will endure forever. The other parts of our religion will soon cease; faith will be swallowed up in sight, hope in fruition; there will be nothing for repentance when we are freed from all our evils; there will be no room for prayer when we are “filled with all the fulness of God:”

“Then shall we see, and hear, and know

All we desired and wish’d below,

And every power find sweet employ

In that eternal world of joy.”