LifeLink Devotions for Thursday, September 17, 2026

Unfortunately we are not a naturally thankful people. It takes many years of training for your children to learn to say thank you after they have received something that was given to them. Even to this day my teenage grandchildren have to be reminded sometimes to say thank you after I’ve paid for their lunch or done something special with them. It would be wise for all of us to pay attention to how thankful we are for everything God does for us.

In yesterday’s devotional we referred to an incident in which the ark of the covenant had been taken away from the people of Israel by the Philistines. As the people repented of their sin God began to restore them and restored the ark of the covenant to their possession. Now many years later under King David the ark has been taken away from them. But God directs David in battle and they defeat the Philistines again and bring the ark of the covenant back to Israel.

The ark of the covenant was representative of the presence of God. It was to be treated as holy and sacred so that people would learn to honor and respect who God is and to seek his presence in their lives. So when the ark was returned to the nation of Israel they rejoiced that the presence of God was once again with them.

On that day that the ark was returned King David wrote a song and declared that it should be sung to the Lord by the Levites, the worship leaders of Israel. You can read all about it in First Chronicles chapters 15 and 16. Notice especially chapter 16 verse seven.

“Then on that day David first appointed that thanksgiving be sung to the Lord by Asaph and his brothers.”

On that day King David basically said to all the people, “We do not give God enough credit and we certainly don’t thank him enough for all that he has done. So I am commanding us to be more thankful.”

I wonder why it’s so hard for us to recognize all the things God does for us every day and then to be thankful to him for what he has done. Well I guess I don’t wonder. I guess I know. We are so self-centered and so self-absorbed that we live in a constant state of entitlement. We believe we deserve everything good that happens to us so we have no reason to be thankful. But God says to us through David that at the moment that something good happens we are to be thankful. In fact later on in the Bible we are told by the apostle Peter that even when things aren’t going well there are many reasons to be thankful. Paul repeats that and so does James.

So today is the beginning of a training period for all of us. They say it takes 20 or so days of repetition for something to become a habit. Start today start forming a new habit that in all things you will give thanks to God. You don’t necessarily have to be thankful for the event that happened but you can be thankful for the God who is using the event to make you a better person. And then take the time every day to read David’s song of Thanksgiving in First Chronicles 16. It starts this way:

“Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name; make known his deeds among the peoples! Sing to him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wondrous works! Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice!”

Make Thanksgiving the ongoing song of your life.

Pastor John