by R.C. Sproul

Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving must be an integral part of prayer. It should be inseparably related to our petitions of supplication; otherwise thanksgiving is illegitimate. The Scriptures tell us to come to God and make all of our requests known with thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is an acknowledgment of God and his benefits. In Psalm 103:2, David extols: "Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits."

Ingratitude is a serious matter. The Scriptures have much to say about it. The failure to be grateful is the mark both of the pagan and the apostate.

In Romans 1:21, Paul calls attention to two primary sins of the pagan. He says, "For although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him." Honor and thanksgiving may be distinguished, but not separated. God is honored by thanksgiving and dishonored by the lack of it. All that we have and all that we are we owe ultimately to the benevolence of our Creator. To slight him by withholding appropriate gratitude is to exalt ourselves and debase him.

The pagan must be distinguished from the apostate. The pagan has never entered into the household of faith. He is a stranger to the covenant community. Idolatry and ingratitude characterize him. An apostate is one who joins the church, becomes a member of the visible covenant community, and then repudiates the church, leaving it for a life of secular indulgence. The apostate is "one who forgets." He has a short memory.

Jesus' encounter with the ten lepers illustrates the importance of thanksgiving. Countless sermons have been preached about the healing of the ten lepers, focusing attention on the theme of gratitude. The thrust of many of these sermons has been that Jesus healed ten lepers, but that only one of them was grateful. The only polite response to such preaching is to call it what it is--nonsense. It is inconceivable that a leper enduring the abject misery he faced daily in the ancient world would not be grateful for receiving instant healing from the dreadful disease. Had he been one of the lepers, even Adolph Hitler would have been grateful.

The issue in the story is not one of gratitude, but of thanksgiving. It is one thing to feel grateful; it is another thing to express it. Lepers were cut off from family and friends. Instant cleansing meant release from exile. We can imagine them deliriously happy, rushing home to embrace their wives and children, to announce their healing. Who would not be grateful? But only one of them postponed his return home and took time to give thanks. The account in Luke 17 reads: "Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan" (verses 15-16; italics mine).

All of our prayers are to include thanksgiving. Like the leper we must pause, turn back, and give thanks. We are so indebted to God that we can never exhaust our opportunities for expressing gratitude.

Forgetting the benefits of God is also the mark of the carnal Christian, one who lives by his feelings. He is prone to a roller-coaster spiritual life, moving quickly from ecstatic highs to depressing lows. In the high moments he feels an exhilarating sense of God's presence, but he plunges to despair the moment he senses an acute absence of such feelings. He lives from blessing to blessing, suffering the pangs of a short memory. He lives always in the present, savoring the "now" but losing sight of what God has done in the past. His obedience and service are only as strong as the intensity of his last memory of blessing.

If God never grants us another glimpse of his glory in this life, if he never grants us another request, if he never gives us another gift from the abundance of his grace, we still would be obligated to spend the rest of our lives praising him for what he has already done. We have already been blessed enough to be moved daily to thanksgiving. Nevertheless, God continues to bless us.

Supplication
Someone once said to me, "With so many people starving, it might be wrong for me to pray for a rug for my living room." Yet, the God who cares about the empty stomachs of the world is the same God who cares about empty living rooms. What is important to us may also be important to our Father. If we are not sure about the propriety of our request, we should tell that to God. James 1:5 says, "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all men generously and without reproaching, and it will be given him." The Greek phrase translated "without reproaching," literally means "without throwing it back in your face." We don't need to be afraid of the reproach of God, provided we are sincerely seeking his will in a given situation.

Nothing is too big or too small to bring before God in prayer, as long as it is not something we know to be contrary to the expressed will of God. It would obviously be quite inappropriate to ask God to make us competent thieves. We must not tempt God as the man who revealed during a national television interview that he had made a pact with God. He declared that he had promised God that if God were to bless his two brothels, he would spend the rest of his life serving him. Assuming that our request is not blatantly opposed to the will of God as made clear in his Word, then no supplication is illegitimate, if it can be made with thanksgiving.

But, what if our prayers seem to go unanswered? Sometimes we feel as if our prayers lack the power to penetrate the ceiling. It is as if our petitions fall upon deaf ears, and God remains unmoved or unconcerned about our passionate pleading. Why do these feelings haunt us?

There are several reasons why we are sometimes frustrated in prayer. I will review some of the more important ones:

1. We pray in vague generalities. When all our prayers are either vague or universal in scope, it is difficult for us to experience the exhilaration that goes with clear and obvious answers to prayer. If we ask God to "bless everyone in the world" or to "forgive everyone in town," it would be difficult to "see" the prayer answered in any concrete way. Having a broad scope of interest in prayer is not wrong, but if all prayer is so general, then no prayer will have specific and concrete application.

2. We are at war with God. If we are out of harmony with God or in open rebellion toward him, we can hardly expect him to turn a benevolent ear toward our prayers. His ear is inclined to those who love him and seek to obey him. He turns his ear away from the wicked. Thus an attitude of reverence toward God is vital to the effectiveness of our prayers.

3. We tend to be impatient. When I pray for patience, I tend to ask for it "right now!" It is not uncommon for us to wait years, indeed decades, for our most sincere petitions to become realized. God is rarely in a hurry. On the other hand, our fidelity to God tends to depend on "prompt and courteous" acts by God. If God tarries, our impatience gives way to frustration. We need to learn patience, asking God for his peace.

4. We have short memories. It is easy for us to forget the benefits and gifts given by the hand of God. This is the mark of the apostate--he forgets the benefits of God. The saint remembers the gifts of God and doesn't require a fresh one each hour to keep his faith intact.

Though God does heap grace upon grace, we should be able to rejoice in God's benefits even if we never receive another benefit from him. Remember the Lord when you go before him. He will not give you a stone when you ask him for bread.

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This is part eleven of R.C. Sproul's small book Does Prayer Change Things?. Over the coming weeks we will be posting the complete text of this short but profound and practical book right here at the Ligonier Ministries blog. We have already posted Chapter 1 and Chapter 2.