1 Timothy 4:4-5  For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

So much of the Christian life is bound up in setting aside the self and letting God be good. As Luther explains here, it is an arrogant presumption to claim as ours what belongs to God alone. What vanity to believe that God needs what we can offer! Such thinking is rooted in pride and fear - I will share what I have and God will regard it favorably. Or if I do not give to God, He will withdraw His blessings or punish me. Even the praise God expects in response to His blessings is for our good. Gratitude reminds us of the giver. The practice of thanksgiving and praise is communication with the heavenly Father. Both fill the human heart with joy and deprive it of fear.

God's wish for communication reflects His larger desire - to know and have intimacy with sinners. When we recognize God's benevolence, we learn what He is like. When we share what God has given with those in need, we further grasp what Jesus did for us. As Paul explains in 1 Timothy 4, Christian prayer and praise are not holy by themselves; they are made so in the blood of Jesus Christ. God sent Jesus so that He could know sinners and restore the intimacy our disobedience destroyed in the Garden of Eden. Through faith in Jesus, we receive not merely clothing, food, house, and home, but the unchangeable love of the Father and everlasting sonship in His house.
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