Psalm 100:4
Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him, bless his name!
It is quite wonderful, when you think about it, how much Scripture calls us to praise, to bless, and to give thanks to God. Not all ancient religious traditions emphasized this festal aspect of life. Some ancient forms of worship consisted, not so much in thanksgiving as in grimly proving that you meant business and were willing to do whatever it took"gashing yourself with knives, suspending yourself from hooks, throwing your firstborn in the fire"to make the grade and be acceptable to the dark gods who despise you. These days, the dark gods often haunt the tops of skyscrapers, not forbidding mountain peaks. But they still stare down at us with the ruthless, sleepless, unsmiling concentration upon Self and the Bottom Line and they still coldly dismiss this wanton and wasteful lack of efficiency in lavishing praise and thanksgiving on God. As Bill Gates observed, Sunday worship is not a very cost-effective use of time. Such a soulless cost-benefit analysis is beyond parody to those who have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. And, we may hope, it will one day sound as funny to those who are, at present, trapped in the worship of Mammon. At any rate, let us pray that Gates be opened wide with thanksgiving!
