My Thanksgiving Day Prayer ABOUTJesus TO Jesus

Thanksgiving Day 2022

This Is My Thanksgiving Day Prayer: 

It’s All ABOUT Jesus. But It’s Also TO Jesus!

David Bryant

Are you ready for Thanksgiving Day? How about in addition to getting ready to prepare a bountiful meal, you “stuff” your mind and spirit full of real “thanksgiving”?

I have a Thanksgiving gift to help you do that!

In this blog post, I’m sharing what may be the most unusual prayer of thanksgiving you have ever read. Why do I say that?

Because this entire prayer is about—and only about—the phenomenal reasons we should be thankful for a person: our Lord Jesus Christ.

Scripture does urge us to do this: “Let us thank God for his priceless gift! (2 Corinthians 9:15, Good News Translation). So, let’s get started!

This Thanksgiving prayer has seven parts based on who Jesus is TO us, FOR us, OVER us, BEFORE us, WITHIN us, THROUGH us, and UPON us. You can pray one part each of the seven days leading up to Thanksgiving Day.

In just a few minutes each day, your heart will be filled and thrilled with thanks and praise to the Father for the Lord Jesus Christ as you focus each day on different aspects of ALL that Jesus is in his supremacy—past, present, and future!

Here’s another idea: I’ve composed the prayer so that it can be experienced with others out loud as a responsive prayer—perhaps in a church service or in family devotions.

This prayer is based on the main chapters and main chapter divisions of my recent book, Christ Is NOW!, which is now available as a free ebook on the ChristNow website HERE so you can expand your understanding of these glories of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that are given so briefly in this prayer.

Also, you can hear me read/pray this prayer as part of my CHRIST TODAY Podcast episode #296 for Thanksgiving HERE.

This Is My Thanksgiving Day  Prayer:

It’s All ABOUT Jesus. But It’s Also TO Jesus!

(If used as a responsive prayer, the leader reads the section headings
and the lighter texts. The other people respond with the darker texts.)

Father, I’ve come to give thanks for the Lord Jesus Christ, your greatest blessing to me and to the whole creation.

He is the indescribable, amazing, extraordinary, inexhaustible, priceless gift that keeps on giving. 

So, at this special time of giving thanks, after all we’ve been through the past two years in our nation, I want to focus my heart totally on your dear Son, giving him the preeminence that belongs to him alone.

Father, I want to express my praise and gratitude directly to Jesus, seated at your right hand, as he fills the universe at this moment with his supremacy, his sovereignty, his activity, and his saving power.

Lord Jesus, I thank you for the person you are TO us—
as God’s Son and our Savior.

  • Thank you for the beauty and supremacy of who you are in your deity.
  • Thank you for showing me your intimacy with the Trinity and for sharing that with us.
  • Thank you for how you are the perfection of the revelation of who God is.
  • Thank you that you are the picture of Scripture—the fulfillment of all of God’s Word.
  • Thank you for the claims of who you are in the hundreds of names the Bible gives to you.
  • Thank you that you have become for me both my identity and our destiny.
  • Thank you for being not only our Father’s greatest passion but for letting us know you as our greatest passion as well.

Lord Jesus, I thank you for the person you are FOR us—
for all you have accomplished for our salvation.

  • I praise you for the invasion of your incarnation—when you became one of us, like us, among us, for us.
  • I praise you for the mission of your crucifixion—when you paid the price of all our sin.
  • I praise you for the re-creation of your resurrection—when you rose again for us so we could join you in the New Creation.
  • I praise you for the coronation of your ascension—when you took the throne for us and brought us from the power of darkness into your glorious domain.
  • I praise you that though you were rich, you became poor for me in all these ways so that through your poverty, I might be made rich.

Lord Jesus, I thank you for the person you are OVER us—
as you reign moment by moment for the glory of God.

  • I’m grateful that you reign over the workings of all creation.
  • I’m grateful that you reign over the unfolding of world history.
  • I’m grateful that you reign over the designs of global leaders.
  • I’m grateful that you reign over the destiny of earth’s peoples.
  • I’m grateful that you reign over the rebellion of Satan’s forces.
  • I’m grateful that you reign over the building of your Church.
  • I’m grateful that your Kingship will never end—and that I will share it with you forever.

Lord Jesus, I thank you for the person you are BEFORE us—
as you go ahead of us to take us into all God has for us.

  • I bless you for going onward into the future to bring much of it back to me right now.
  • I bless you for going upward into the Heavens to take me with you into the Father’s presence.
  • I bless you for going inward into the depths of God’s promises to fulfill them in yourself and share them with me.
  • I bless you for going outward into the world, near me and far from me, to open up a way for me to serve you and share you with others.
  • I bless you as daily you lead me in your victory parade, taking me with you into the inexhaustible riches of God’s grace and glory.

Lord Jesus, I thank you for the person you are WITHIN us—
as you pour into us your resurrected, ascended life.

  • I celebrate your indwelling, abiding, proactive, life-giving presence in my daily walk with you.
  • I celebrate how you fill me with the Holy Spirit, who imparts to me the fullness of your saving victories, your many transforming ministries, and your unlimited capacity to love others.
  • I celebrate that you dwell in me so fully that you have built me into a temple of living stones in which you reside in all your fullness.
  • I celebrate that you dwell in me so fully that you consider me a member of your very own body with you as the head.
  • I celebrate that you dwell in me so fully that you embrace and care for me the way a husband does the wife with whom he is forever one.

Lord Jesus, I thank you for the person you are THROUGH us—
as you carry out your redeeming mission using me.

  • I stand in awe of you because your reign cannot be contained but keeps advancing to the ends of the earth through people like me.
  • I stand in awe of you because the trajectory of your supremacy is always moving forward, advancing God’s saving purposes among every tribe, tongue, and nation, doing so through people like me.
  • I stand in awe of you because the larger my vision grows of your supremacy, the stronger my faith in you grows, and the wider the reach of my ministry for you grows—by you but through me.
  • I stand in awe of you because your work through me for God’s glory has no limits as to how far it goes, what it involves, who it touches, what it accomplishes, or what it costs me.
  • I stand in awe of you as you live out your redemptive ministry through your people together as we unite to labor for your name and fame and reign.

Lord Jesus, I thank you for the person you are UPON us—
as you amplify, magnify, intensify, and finalize your work with us.

  • All honor goes to you for never letting me settle for where I am with you but always coming upon me to take me further and deeper into the riches of your grace and power.
  • All honor goes to you for coming upon me to meet me in my longings for more of you and to make my walk with you more marvelous with each passing day.
  • All honor goes to you for how your reign will come upon this generation to awaken multitudes of your people to the amazing dimensions of who you are to us, for us, over us, before us, within us, and through us.
  • All honor goes to you for bringing me into foretastes of the age to come and coming upon me to give me approximations of the impending consummation through outward miracles and inward transformation.
  • All honor goes to you as you make everything ready for the day when you will come upon the whole universe—visibly, and in final redemption and judgment—bringing in a new heaven and a new earth where you will rule as King forever.

Father, I offer this praise to you with all my heart and soul and strength. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, so it is now and ever shall be—world without end! AMEN!

Follow-up:

As I suggested earlier, since the prayer is based on the chapters and main chapter divisions of my book Christ Is NOW!, you might want to read it or some of it between now and Christmas. It’s a great way to welcome what Advent celebrates. You can read it HERE.

Also, you can hear me read/pray this prayer as part of my 30-minute CHRIST TODAY Podcast episode #296 for Thanksgiving Day HERE.


About the Author

Over the past 45 years, David Bryant has been defined by many as a “messenger of hope” and a “Christ proclaimer” to the Church throughout the world. Formerly a minister-at-large with the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, president of Concerts of Prayer International (COPI), and chairman of America’s National Prayer Committee, David now provides leadership to ChristNow.com and Proclaim Hope!, whose mission is to foster and serve Christ awakening movements. Order his widely read books at DavidBryantBooks.com. Enjoy 15-minute episodes of his Daily CHRIST TODAY Podcast or more in-depth, 30-minute discussions in the “The Classic Series” of the CHRIST TODAY Podcast.

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