This series, Thanksgiving: Prayers of Gratitude and Praise, looks at the thanksgiving prayers in Paul’s epistles and uses four different points of thanks that Paul offers to God as a way to help inspire gratitude and praise in our hearts as we enter the Thanksgiving and holiday season. Believers are called to share in God’s work by using the gifts they have received to build up other believers and glorify God. We must work together through prayer to lift one another up in faithful ways so the body will work as God intends.
We all have the responsibility to pursue peace and unity in our lives, both in the church and in the world around us. We are to be examples to the world of what it looks like to live in the love God has shown us. Paul’s love for the Philippian churches is a great example of loving others with abandon. Paul longed for the Philippian believers to know that they were valued beyond what they could imagine. He valued them that way because God valued them that way—and he hoped that they would one day value one another the same way. Paul’s thankfulness shows in his love for the Philippian churches and in his prayer for their ongoing personal— and collective—transformation.