Think of the many ways in which God has been good to His people. Review His kindnesses to [y]our church. Recall the kindnesses that He has shown specifically to you, and then share these blessings with others so that they can bless God with you.

Thanksgiving comes every year, and giving thanks to God is a standard privilege of the Christian life. It is our obedience: “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). It is also a way to glorify God—notice the parallelism in Psalm 86:12: “I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify your name forever.”

So how can we give thanks to God in a way that glorifies Him? Among many passages that could guide us, consider Psalm 65. After firing off four commands for the earth to praise the Lord (Psalm 65:1–4), the psalmist explains why the reader should “Come and see what God has done” (Psalm 66:5a). The Lord did awesome deeds to rescue Israel from Egypt (Psalm 66:5b–7). Then, the psalmist commands again, “Bless our God, O peoples; let the sound of His praise be heard” (Psalm 66:8), the reason being that God led Israel through difficulty and yet delivered them “to a place of abundance” (Psalm 66:9–12).

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