Happy Thanksgiving!

"It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
to sing praises to your name, O Most High;
to declare your steadfast love in the morning,
and your faithfulness by night,
to the music of the lute and the harp,
to the melody of the lyre.
For to you O Lord, have made me glad by your works;
at the works of your hands I sing for joy." Psalm 92:1-4

"Jonathan Edwards has a word for our time that could hardly be more pointed if he were living today. It has to do with the foundation of gratitude: "True gratitude or thankfulness to God for his kindness to us, arises from a foundation laid before, of love to God for what he is in himself, whereas a natural gratitude has no such antecedent foundation. The gracious stirrings of grateful affection to God, for kindness received, always are from a stock of love already in the heart, established in the first place on other grounds, viz. God's excellency."
In other words, gratitude that is pleasing to God is not first a delight in the benefits God gives (although that is part of it). True gratitude must be rooted in something else that comes first, namely, a delight in the beauty and excellency of God's character. If this is not the foundation of our gratitude, then not above what the "natural man"- apart from the Spirit and the new nature in Christ- experiences. In that case, gratitude to God is no more pleasing to God than all the other emotions that the unbelievers have without delighting in him.
You would not be honored if I thanked you often for your gifts to me, but had no deep and spontaneous regard for you as a person. You would feel insulted no matter how much I thanked you for your gifts. If your character and personality do not attract me or give me joy in being around you, then you will just feel used, like a tool or a machine to produce the things I really love. ...
We do well to listen to Jonathan Edwards. Does he not simply spell out for us the biblical truth that we should do all things- including giving thanks- to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31)? God is not glorified if the foundation of our gratitude is the worth of the gift and not the excellency of the Giver. If gratitude is not rooted in the beauty of God before the gift, it is probably disguised idolatry. May God grant us a heart to delight in him for who he is so that all our gratitude for his gifts will be the echo of our joy in the excellency of the Giver!" - John Piper in A Godward Life

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!