Read What the Word Says about Thanksgiving for Creation

The Old Testament

Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.
Praise the LORD!

What shall I render to the Lord
For all His benefits toward me?
I will take up the cup of salvation,
And call upon the name of the Lord.
I will pay my vows to the Lord
Now in the presence of all His people.

Let them praise the name of the LORD,
For He commanded and they were created.

Lift up your eyes on high,
And see who has created these things…
Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
The everlasting God, the LORD,
The Creator of the ends of the earth,
Neither faints nor is weary.
His understanding is unsearchable.

The New Testament

The Heavenly Doctrines

The Purpose of Creation

The purpose of the creation of the universe was none other than the formation of a heaven of angels from human beings, [one] where all who believe in God shall live forever in eternal blessedness.

So, then, since the Lord God the Creator is love itself and wisdom itself, and the universe was created by Him, being in consequence a work, so to speak, issuing from Him, it must be that in each and every created thing there is some goodness and truth from Him. For whatever is accomplished by and issues from anyone, derives from him a character similar to his. Reason can also see that this is so from the order which each and every thing in the universe was created in, in which one thing exists for the sake of another, and in which one thing therefore depends on another, like the links in a chain. For all things exist for the sake of the human race, that from it may come the angelic heaven by which creation returns to the Creator, its source.

Reflecting on Creation

The Creator of the universe distinguished each and every thing He created into kinds, and each kind into species, and differentiated each species, and likewise every variety, and so on; and this in order to present an image of the Infinite in an endless multiplicity of qualities.

Observe in its development the progression by which a tree grows from a seed even to the production of new seed, and consider whether the progression does not have in it throughout a continual effort to propagate itself further. For the ultimate end to which it advances is its seed, in which its propagative power exists anew. Moreover, if you are willing then to think spiritually (as you can do if you are willing), will you not see wisdom in that seed? And still more, if you are willing to think spiritually to such a point, will you not see that that wisdom does not originate from the seed, nor from the world's sun, which is nothing but fire, but that it originates in the seed from God the Creator, who possesses infinite wisdom? And this not only at the time it was created, but also continually afterward? For continued sustenance is a continual creation, as continued existence is a continual coming into existence.

Creation and Regeneration

The universal end of creation…is for an eternal conjunction of the Creator with the created universe to take place, and this is not possible without vessels in which His Divinity can exist as though in itself, thus in which it can dwell and abide. For these vessels to be His dwellings or abodes, they must be recipients of His love and wisdom as though of themselves, thus recipients which will as though of themselves elevate themselves to the Creator and conjoin themselves with Him. Without this reciprocity, conjunction is not possible. These vessels are human beings, who are able as though of themselves to elevate and conjoin themselves…By that conjunction the Lord is present in every work created by Him. For everything was created ultimately for the sake of mankind. Consequently the uses of all that He created ascend by degrees from the lowest created forms to mankind, and through mankind to God the Creator from whom they originate.

Apocalypse Explained 328:9

He [the Lord] is called Creator because "to create" in the Word signifies to regenerate.

Attributing All Life to the Lord

True confession of the heart, because it flows from celestial love, is confession in the genuine sense. The person with whom it exists acknowledges that everything good comes from the Lord and everything evil from self. When that acknowledgement exists with him it is a state of humiliation, for in this case he acknowledges the Lord to be everything in him and he himself in comparison to be nothing. And when confession is made in this state it flows from celestial love.

Angels, from their wisdom, go still further. They say that not only everything good and true is from the Lord but everything of life as well…They say, further, that there is but one fountain of life and that man's life is a stream therefrom, which, if it did not unceasingly come into existence from its fountain, would immediately flow away....This being the belief of the angels, they refuse all thanks for the good that they do and are indignant and withdraw if anyone attributes good to them. [3] They are astonished that anyone believes that he is wise from himself or does good from himself. Doing good for one's own sake they do not call good because it is from self; but doing good for the sake of good, they call good from the Divine, and they say it is this good that makes heaven because this Good is the Lord.

Giving Thanks

Saying, "we give Thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty", signifies the acknowledgment that all being, living, and ability are from the Lord.

The Lord does, it is true, demand humility, worship, thanksgiving, and much else from a person, which seem like repayment, so that His gifts do not seem to be free. But the Lord does not demand those things for His own sake, for the Divine derives no glory at all from a person's humility, worship, or thanksgiving. It is utterly inconceivable that any self-love should exist within the Divine, causing Him to require such actions for His own sake. Rather, they are required for man's own sake, for if someone possesses humility he is able to accept good from the Lord, since in that case he has been parted from self-love and its evils which stand in the way of his accepting it. Therefore the Lord desires a state of humility in a person for that person's sake, because the Lord can flow in with heavenly good when that state exists in him. The same applies to worship and thanksgiving.

Apocalypse Explained 1210

The reason why praising God signifies to confess and worship, is, that the Lord does not desire to be praised or glorified from any love for Himself, but from His love for man. For a person cannot do otherwise than praise and glorify the Lord, or give praise and glory to Him, when he acknowledges in heart that there is nothing good in himself, and that he can do nothing from himself, and on the other hand that all good is from the Lord, and that the Lord can do all things. When a person is in this acknowledgment he then puts away his proprium, whose origin is the love of self, opens the whole of his mind, and thus enables the Divine to enter by influx with good and with power. It is therefore necessary that a person be in humiliation before the Lord, and that such humiliation be from no other source than the acknowledgment of his own [nature] and the acknowledgment of the Lord; according to these things reception takes place. That to give praise to God, and to praise God, is to confess Him, and from confession of heart to worship Him…

Apocalypse Revealed 630

'And adore Him Who has made the heaven and the land and the sea and the fountains of waters' signifies that the Lord Only ought to be worshipped, because He Only is the Creator, Savior and Redeemer, and from Him Only do the angelic heaven and the Church and all the things thereof exist. That by 'to adore' is signified to acknowledge as holy…and therefore by 'to adore', when said of the Lord, is signified to acknowledge as the God of heaven and earth and to worship. By 'to make the heaven and the land and the sea and the fountains of waters' in the natural sense is understood to create them, but in the spiritual sense it signifies to make the angelic heaven and the Church and all the things thereof, for by 'the heaven' in the spiritual sense is signified the angelic heaven. By 'the land and the sea' in that sense is signified the Church internal and external, and by 'the fountains of waters' are signified all the truths of the Word of service to the Church for doctrine and life.

True Christian Religion 308

It must be grasped that there proceeds constantly from the Lord a Divine sphere of heavenly love towards all who embrace the teaching of His church, and who, just as children in the world obey their father and mother, obey Him, are attached to Him, and seek food, that is, instruction from Him. This heavenly sphere is the origin of the natural sphere of love towards infants and children. This is extremely universal, affecting not only human beings but also birds and beasts, even down to snakes; and not only animate creatures, but even inanimate objects. But the Lord, in order to work on these as He does on spiritual things, created the sun to be a sort of father in the natural world, and the earth to be a sort of mother. For the sun is so to speak the common father, and the earth the common mother, from whose marriage spring all the products of germination which adorn the earth's surface. The action of that heavenly sphere on the natural world produces those wonderful developments of plants from seed to fruit and to new seeds. That too is why there are many kinds of plants which by day turn their faces, so to speak, towards the sun, and turn them away when the sun sets. That too is why there are flowers which open as the sun rises and close as it sets. That too is why song birds sing sweetly in the early morning, and likewise when they have been fed by mother earth. So it is that all these things honor their father and their mother. All of these occurrences are evidence that the Lord, by means of the sun and the earth in the natural world, provides all necessities for living creatures and for inanimate matter. That is why we read in the Psalms of David:

Praise Jehovah from the heavens. Praise Him, sun and moon; praise Him from the earth, whales and deeps. Praise Him, fruit tree and all cedars; wild beast and every animal, reptile and birds with wings; the kings of the earth and all peoples, young men and maidens. (Ps. 148:1-12).

And in Job:

Ask, I beg you, the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the sky, and they will report to you; or the plant of the earth, and it will instruct you; and the fish of the sea will tell you. Who does not know from all these things that the hand of Jehovah has done this? (Job 12:7-9).

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