(Thanksgiving) Expressing our gratitude for, and declaring God’s glory in, His grace and providences, drawn from Psalm 9:1-2: 
 
I will give thanks to the Lord with all my heart; 

I will tell of all Your wonders. 

2 I will be glad and exult in You; 

I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High. 

Almighty Lord and Heavenly Father,

As we are gathered together this morning, our very gathering is a testament to your grace and providences, and to your worthiness to receive our thankfulness. 

We do not thank you as we ought to, but as we are able—and our inability to praise and thank you as we ought renders yet even greater reason for our thankfulness: that in Christ you have turned our hearts to desire to praise and thank you, in Christ our praise and thankfulness is found acceptable to you, and in Christ your ultimate purpose is to bring us before you in glorified bodies in a sinless world, able then to thank and praise you as we ought in perfect ability, perfect understanding, and perfect expression.  

We thank you for your great work of provision throughout this past week. You have clothed nature and watched over sparrows, and you have given us our daily bread, meal by meal, day by day—and much more. You have brought us that which is not only necessary for our sustenance, but for our pleasure and enjoyment. We thank you for your faithfulness to your promise to provide for our needs, and for your generosity and abundance in that provision.  

We thank you for the blessing of family. Throughout this week you have often given us the joy and acceptance of both our immediate and extended families. Even in sorrow, Father, you have brought us comfort, given us hope, and granted that the familial sorrows we experienced have been far less than what we might have known. Above and beyond that, you have blessed us with the love and fellowship and discipleship as a Body through the saving work of Christ, which has added to—and even filled up the absence of—the bonds of spouses, parents, children, and siblings. In Christ, you have brought us closer to each other in our diversity than the closeness that we have in the relationships of our own family, and we thank you for this gracious providence received directly from your hand. 

We thank you for your Truth, and for your great generosity in providing us with the light of your inspired, all-sufficient Word. You have not given us mere flickers and passing gleams, but the bright lamp of Scripture by which we behold your glory and in which we see Christ, who is your salvation which You have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a Light of revelation to the Gentiles, And the glory of Your people Israel. (Luke 2:30-32) 

We look upon these wonders and many more, and we thank you for your holy goodness, your faithfulness, and your kind and gracious Providences among us, which we have seen and known this past week, which we are experiencing at this very moment, and which we will see and know in this week before us. Today, tomorrow, and into eternity may the testimony of our life and worship be of praise and thanks to you. 

This we pray in Christ’s name, Amen.