The Power of Gratitude
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
Sometimes gratitude hurts.
Life isn’t always kind, and when we find ourselves struggling over circumstances we wouldn’t choose, we don’t naturally feel grateful. In fact, we tend to get angry. Even bitter.
Yet our opening scripture suggests that God desires for us to give thanks in all circumstances. Every one. That includes the good and the bad.
This is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you, beloved. Gratitude.
Why would gratitude be so important to God? Perhaps the next verse offers some insight.
Do not quench the Spirit. Verse 19
Ingratitude stops the flow of the Spirit, hindering God’s work in our midst. Praise and thanksgiving, on the other hand, release God’s Spirit to move.
Ingratitude stops the flow of the Spirit in our lives. Gratitude releases it. Click To Tweet
You see, thanksgiving carries us into His presence.
Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise! Give thanks to Him; bless His name! Psalm 100:4
When we choose gratitude—even when we’re hurting or don’t understand our present circumstances—we choose to enter into God’s goodness. That choice—to focus on what is good instead of what’s presently lacking—removes the enemy’s power and invites God in. You see, perspective is everything.
“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light.” Matthew 6:22
According to Jesus, how we view something directly relates to what we experience in our body. The light we long for comes from seeing with a healthy perspective. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true. When we view things through a faulty lens—the lens of negativity—our body takes on the darkness of our wrong perspective. It actually gives the enemy a position of power in our lives—and permission to torment us.
“But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” Matthew 6:23
I wonder, dear one, if you wrestle with the pull of the darkness in your own life. Hopelessness, anxiety, and depression are crippling lives in greater measure than we’ve ever seen, particularly within the body of Christ.
Yet we have this promise about our Savior,
In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:4-5
Do you want to live the overcoming promises of God’s Word, beloved? Do you want to dwell in the power of the light? Choose gratitude. Find something to be thankful for, and dwell on that. Let your lips offer a sacrifice of praise, especially during times of sorrow. You will discover that gratitude ushers you into the presence of God.
I’ve watched this happen in the life of my mother-in-law over the last couple of years.
Pain in her body has kept her from doing many of the things she loves to do. She spends most of her days at home. Hurting. But I have watched a sweet peace fall over her, as she’s chosen not to dwell on what she’s lost, but rather all that she has.
She tells me, “I have so much time, time to think of all the blessings God has given me. My beautiful family. His faithfulness to us.”
And I’ve watched a beautiful miracle unfold through her. You see, the presence of God falls on her and flows through her when she speaks. A friend of mine visited her recently wanting to encourage her. Instead, she was profoundly blessed by the encouragement she received! God’s presence flowed to my friend and lifted her own weary heart.
Why? Because my mother-in-law has spent the last years dwelling in the courts of her King. Her gratitude ushered her through His gates, allowing Him to minister to her soul. And that allows Him to show up without her even trying. Her heart is already engaged with His, and He’s right there, ready to give.
When our hearts stay engaged with God's Spirit, He shows up without our even trying. Click To TweetAs we celebrate this Thanksgiving season, I wonder if we can go a little deeper. Beyond pumpkins and lovely wooden signs declaring thanks, what if we engaged our hearts? Let’s fill our bodies with light as we look at our lives through the lens of gratitude and declare our thanks to the Giver of every good gift.
As you enter His courts with your praise, He may just surprise you.
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The Power of Ingratitude
“By day the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night.” Exodus 13:21
Did you ever notice how God becomes just what we need from Him in any given moment?
Perhaps you haven’t noticed. Maybe, like the Israelites, you reap the benefit of His presence without ever giving it much thought. They were often so preoccupied by what they lacked, they didn’t appreciate what they were given. Instead of thanking God for His rich provision, they grumbled.
In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” Exodus 16:2-3
Really? They spent their time in Egypt sitting around pots of meat? Isn’t it amazing how quickly the human mind forgets and distorts. Perhaps you’d like to see what caused God to send Moses to get them out of Egypt in the first place.
The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them. Exodus 2:23-25
God added these words when He called Moses from the burning bush.
The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering . . . I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them.” Exodus 3:7,9
The memory of their groaning in backbreaking slavery quickly faded to illusions of grand feasts. Why? They were hungry. A desire of their flesh rose up and wasn’t satisfied, and that one thing became the entire focus of their thoughts. They forgot the extent of their suffering, as well as God’s miraculous displays of power on their behalf. And their momentary hunger made them twist His intentions. They threw God’s plan to rescue them back in His face, claiming He meant them harm.
Ever been there? That’s the nature of the unredeemed heart, dear one. It deceives. No wonder Jeremiah 17:9 states,
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
And that deceitful heart left unchecked brings bitterness to the soul.
Perhaps this is why scripture continually points the people of God toward gratitude. Gratitude shifts our gaze and changes the direction of our thinking. Instead of emptying the soul by dwelling on what we lack, it fills it by celebrating what we possess.
Sadly, few consistently choose the path of gratitude. Our own hunger for things we desire clouds our view and overshadows our many blessings. And that’s dangerous. Scripture teaches that refusing to acknowledge God with thanksgiving leads to futile thinking and a hard, dark heart.
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools. Romans 1:21-22
Ingratitude made the Israelites fools—fools that desired to run right back to the oppressive captivity they had cried out for deliverance from. Amazing.
Before we start casting stones at the house of Israel, it might be wise to shift our gaze to the nearest mirror. Is your heart content in the journey God has you on, dear one? Do your lips offer praise for the Light that marks your path, or are you preoccupied with an area that remains in shadow? Are you hungering for something so ferociously that all that God has already poured into your life feels empty?
God wants to see your heart at peace, beloved. He longs to satisfy your soul with a contentedness only He can bring. You see, dear one, only God Himself can satisfy.
Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. Psalm 90:14
Do you want a little joy and gladness that carries you all your days? It comes as the result of a choice. Choose to look at what God has done, not what He has yet to do. Offer Him praise and gratitude. You may just find that you encounter God Himself.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations. Psalm 100:4-5
Praise and gratitude usher us into the presence and power of God. Thanksgiving allows us to enter His gates. Praise carries us into His court. And when we encounter Him, we discover just what we needed. Emptiness fades. Our hearts fill with His very presence.
And we are satisfied.
Encountering Jesus
“Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” John 17:3
On Sunday we celebrated Jesus’ resurrection. A throng of people filled our sanctuary, many dressed in pristine Easter finery. Ushers scurried to find seats, busily lining folding chairs along the walls and aisles to accommodate the overflow. It was no ordinary Sunday.
How it must have delighted God’s heart to see the crowds uniting in praise of His Son. Voices rose together in worship, a beautiful melody lifting before the throne of the King. I felt my heart swell with love and gratitude in response to what my Savior chose to suffer for me. My hands rose heavenward involuntarily.
It was a good day.
Today, sadness pricks at the edges of my heart.
You see, I wonder how many of the faithful Easter attendees flooding our churches really know the Savior they came to worship. How many went out of duty for a distant God they hoped to appease by their annual presence on resurrection day? How many others rifle into church each week from that same sense of duty, with no thought of encountering the Living God?
Please hear my heart, dear one. I don’t say this in judgment. I say it because for 26 years I was one of them. I say it because I know the emptiness of being a church attendee who had no fellowship with Jesus. I say it because I want desperately for everyone to experience the transforming power of His unfailing love.
Beloved, do you know Him?
I remember the day I finally met Him.
I wasn’t looking for it when it happened. I was simply trying to finish my homework and get my blanks filled in before our home group met the next time for Bible study.
But my relentless, loving God had plans for this lost and wandering sheep. Four words stared back at me from the page in my workbook, seeking my response: Do you love Jesus?
The question was an easy one, and I lifted my hand to answer “yes” without even thinking. I knew the right answer.
But my hand began to tremble as a fresh revelation dawned. Conviction fell over me as the Spirit of Truth invaded my thoughts and allowed me to see what He saw.
I didn’t love Him.
I had thought I did. I’m sure I’d said it a hundred times in my twenty-six years. After all, I’d grown up in church. And I wasn’t just an Easter worshiper; I worshiped every week. I could quote Scripture and tell you all about Jesus’ life.
But knowing stuff about Jesus isn’t the same as knowing Him.
And that day, the Spirit lifted the veil so I could see the truth about myself. I realized I had been a pretender, living a lie. I couldn’t love Jesus because I didn’t even know Him. But I realized something else that day that was even more important: I wanted to. And so, undone by the Holy Spirit in my living room, I confessed my sin, exited the kingdom of darkness, and gave my life to Jesus.
I have never been the same.
Have you had your encounter with Jesus, dear one? Does your Christianity bear the marks of religious chains, or a transforming work of grace?
If you’re not certain, ask the Lord of Glory to reveal Himself to you. He will never withhold Himself from a seeking heart. In fact, He’s the One stirring you to seek Him. And when you do, He promises,
“I will be found by you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back from captivity.” Jeremiah 29:14
He will lift the veil for you to see, piercing darkness with glory and disclosing your truth. And then, you have a choice to make. Will you step into the light and head toward Jesus? Or do you prefer the comfortable familiarity of the darkness?
Choose life, beloved. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and you will never see heaven without Him (John 14:6). To spend eternity with Him there, you must know and trust Him here.
He beckons you to life with the same invitation He gave the Twelve, “Follow Me.”
Will you follow?
“Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” John 17:3
When God Stirs, He Hears
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him. 1 John 5:14-15
On Sunday we celebrated Father’s Day at church. A guest speaker—a husband and father from the congregation—brought the message. Well, perhaps I should rephrase that. The Holy Spirit brought a powerful Word through a real estate salesman. The result?
At the close of the service, our Pastor took the stage and gave an invitation. Moved by God’s presence hovering in that place, his voice caught as he told the congregation that he would be joining the speaker on his knees at the altar. He invited any willing man to join them . . . any man desiring to lead his family by submitting himself daily to Christ’s leadership . . . any man ready to believe that true power comes when we bow down.
The next moment bore witness to God’s glory. Men from all over the sanctuary began to rise and walk to the front of the church, dropping to their knees one by one as they reached the altar. When the floor space at the front could no longer hold them, they began filling the aisles between the chairs. I wept before the Lord in worship as my gaze took in the empty seats and the sight of hundreds of men kneeling before their Creator, committing to know Him more, to follow Him more faithfully, to be the example for the next generation.
I could do nothing but bow in my own seat, lifting my hands in worship and my voice in praise.
It was a beautiful moment, glory descending as worship rose to heaven’s throne from the hearts of a people united, carried on the wings of praise. You know what made it even sweeter? The moment reflected an answer to prayer.
Have you ever felt compelled to pray for something that reached beyond the scope of your personal circumstances? That focused on the rise of Jesus’ glory instead of your own needs? If not, I challenge you to listen for the stirring of the Spirit within your soul to intercede for His kingdom. That’s the kind of praying that calls heaven down.
In response to God’s prompting, several women within our congregation have been praying for a spiritual awakening among the men of our church. Specifically, we had prayed for God to raise up leaders among them who would turn their hearts toward the Lord. We asked God to stir up mighty men of faith who would model whole-hearted devotion to God and lead others to follow in their steps.
Those prayers began almost 8 years ago.
And God did it. Last Sunday morning, we saw visible evidence of the invisible work God had been doing within the hearts of our congregation as a result of our prayer. And He raised an ordinary man to challenge His people with powerful truth at just the right time when the hearers were ready to respond.
Don’t you just love God’s faithfulness? It shouldn’t surprise us. It’s what God does. He stirs among the hearts of His people to pray and then He delights in answering. As we read in our opening Scripture,
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him. 1 John 5:14-15
Even if it takes 8 years to see the evidence of it.
Just this morning, I came across these words in David Earley’s, 21 Most Effective Prayers of the Bible (Barbour Publishing, Inc., 2005), a prayer journal I’ve been working through in my quiet time. [Original quote from David Jeremiah, Prayer: The Great Adventure (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishers, 1997), p. 40-41]
Pastor David Jeremiah has written, “I scoured the New Testament some time ago, looking for things God does in ministry that are not prompted by prayer. Do you know what I found? Nothing. I don’t mean I had trouble finding an item or two: I mean I found nothing. Everything God does in the work of ministry, He does through prayer. Consider:
· Prayer is the way you defeat the devil (Luke 22:23; James 4:7)
· Prayer is the way you get the lost saved (Luke 18:13)
· Prayer is the way you acquire wisdom (James 1:5)
· Prayer is the way a backslider gets restored (James 5:16-20)
· Prayer is how saints get strengthened (Jude 20; Matthew 26:41)
· Prayer is the way to get laborers out to the mission field (Matthew 9:38)
· Prayer is how we cure the sick (James 5:13-15)
· Prayer is how we accomplish the impossible (Mark 11:23-24)
. . . everything God wants to do in your life He has subjugated to one thing: Prayer."
Do you see the work of God displayed in and around you, dear one? If you are missing out on experiencing the revelation of His power, perhaps you haven’t picked up the key to unlock it.
Allow the Holy Spirit to lead you in prayer, beloved. As He directs you to pray the Father’s will, you can know with confidence that God hears. And when He hears, He acts.
And you get to witness glory.
FROM WORD ON WEDNESDAY
