"Let them sacrifice thank offerings and tell of his works with songs of joy" (Psalms 107:22, NIV)."But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you..." (Jonah 2:9, NIV).
"Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and grateful" (Col. 4:2, NIV).
"Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!" (Rev. 7:12, NIV).
"I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the LORD" (Psalm 116:17, KJV).
They knew God but didn't give Him thanks and for this reason, God darkened their foolish heart. We are responsible for the light God has given us or we will be judged accordingly. Thanksgiving is a sacrifice to God (cf. Psa. 50:14) and praise is another sacrifice to God (cf. Heb. 13:15) that we can offer God as a way to gain entree into His divine throne room and presence. "Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise..." (Psa. 110:4, KJV). That seems to stipulate a formula for getting into the spirit of worship and prayer. They are juxtaposed in this verse and go hand in hand--thanksgiving for what He's done or will do and praise for who He is and how He reveals Himself in glory.
You can be sure that an ingrate is not filled with the Spirit, neither knows it, for this is a basic lesson of spirituality we all learn to mature in the faith. But a lot of ingratitude is habitual and a matter of nurture and upbringing; i.e., it might be the parents who didn't bring them up right! As Romans 1:21 equates the two and says, "they glorified him not as God." Gratitude and praise go together to comprise an act of worship that we owe God as creatures, knowing that He is alone is worthy of our worship. We ought to be so thanksgiving oriented that we are grateful that someone thanks us for kindness rendered in Christ's name-it should make our day! But we should remember that our tasks in the Lord are often thankless tasks!
Paul targets thanksgiving as the right mental attitude in his epistles: "Giving thanks always for all things unto God..." (Eph. 5:20, KJV); "Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God" (Phil. 4:7, KJV); "In everything give thanks" (1 Thess. 5:18, KJV); "And let the peace of God rule in your hearts ... and be ye thankful" (Col. 3:15, KJV). This is stated as the will of God for us. He wants us to learn to see the silver lining behind every cloud and to learn that all our adversity and affliction is Father-filtered and will work together for our good (cf. Rom. 8:28).
The amazing example of having the right attitude of gratitude in dire circumstances is when Paul and Silas were in prison and sang joyfully unto the Lord. No one can take away our attitude and that's why we must cultivate this as a sure way to stay focused on God. Paul demonstrates his attitude of gratitude in prison writing Philippians by opening with thanksgiving.
Gratitude is not the ultimate proof of faith per se but is the sign of a right mental attitude (cf. Col. 4:2; Psa. 100:4). God condemns ingrates: "... for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience" (Eph. 5:6, ESV). Nowhere in Scripture are gratitude and faith equated, correlated, or juxtaposed as a measure or keynote of each other; however, faith and obedience are in Hebrews 3:18-19, NASB, as follows: "And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief" (cf. Heb. 4:6, 11). Some translations mistranslated these verses and put in "unbelief" instead of "disobedience." James 2:18, NIV, says, "... and I will show you my faith by my deeds."
But the NASB and ESV are more literal and use what is functional equivalence; i.e., word for word translations not thought for thought. Faith and obedience are eternally equated in Romans 1:5 and 16:26 (that they might "come to the obedience that comes from faith," cf. NIV) and in Acts 6:7, "They were obedient to the faith."
Also, note that Dietrich Bonhoeffer said quite dogmatically, "Only he who believes is obedient; only he who is obedient believes." These two are definitely equated in the Word. Doctrinally speaking, the only proof of faith is obedience just as Christ admonished that if we love Him we will obey Him. Thanksgiving, even praise, can be signs of faith but not the ultimate litmus test, but obedience is the plumbline (cf. John 14:21). We don't have the law to obey but are measured by our obedience to the will of God (we are free in Christ but not free from God's will!), which is an easier yoke and we have the Spirit which bears witness with our spirit to give us peace. Clearly, obedience is the test: "... Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams" (1 Sam. 15:22, NKJV).
Jesus made it clear love would be the telltale sign of the believer (cf. John 13:35) and the world would know we are Christians by our love. Love is the distinguishing trait of our faith and its greatest contribution in charity, outreach, missions, evangelizing, and labor. Faith is what pleases God and its expression is love: "... The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love" (cf. Gal. 5:6, NIV). Soli Deo Gloria!
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