Here’s What No One Tells You About Being Thankful In All Things
Why should we be thankful in all things?
1 Thessalonians 5:18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
In the 18th-century classic, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, William Law made the following statement:“Would you know who is the greatest saint in the world? It is not he who prays most or fasts most; it is not he who gives most alms or is most eminent for temperance, chastity, or justice; but it is he who is always thankful to God, who wills everything that God wills, who receives everything as an instance of God’s goodness and has a heart always ready to praise God for it. Could you therefore work miracles, you could not do more for yourself than by this thankful spirit, for it turns all that it touches into happiness.”
WILLIAM LAW
Today I want to share a very simple but yet difficult message with you. When I say difficult I mean I struggle with it even though it is simple to do and I am sure many of you also struggle with this and that is Giving Thanks To God For Everything He Has Done For You.
Now I am sure some of you will be saying that is so simple to do – Every Day I wake up from Bed and I tell God thanks and I give him praises for all he has done for me.
Now if that is you , I want you to know that that is a good first step but that doesn’t really mean you are thankful and you are grateful.
Thankfulness and Gratefulness are shown not so much by our words but by our actions.
E.g A husband may say to his Wife “Oh I am so thankful for all that you do around the house and taking care of the family” but his actions can show somehing else.
We may say we are grateful to our Parents for helping us get to where we are today but when they get old and we get our big money what happens is we have no money to give to them.
The money is our money . If they get sick and become a nusiance we shall put them in a home cause we don’t want them to hold us back in life.
That is 1 way a child may show that they not really grateful or thankful. Anyone can say “Yes I am thankful to you” but are we really thankful?
We can say “Oh I am so thankful to God for waking me up and for making me who I am today” I can throw the biggest thanksgiving and have the best food , have the best preachers preaching in it, inviting the entire village to celebrate with me how God has healed me etc but when that day is over – do I show God that I am really thankful and grateful to him or is that just a 1 time event.
Would I talk to him tomorrow? Would I give money towards his Word, Devote time to do his will.
Those are ways we show our thankfulness to God.
Anyone can say anything but actions will say the truth.
Today I am sure a lot of marriages are failing because of a lack of gratefulness. People today are very ungrateful. We are not very thankful – we take a lot of things for granted.
We have a lot to be thankful for today that we take for granted.
Right now it has 1.48 Million People who wish they had what you have. Do you know where I got that figure from?
I went on Google and type how many people have died from the Corona Virus and that is what Google Said. These people would do anything to trade places with you. We have life and we have a lot to be thankful for.
Why Should We Be Thankful In All Things?
It is actually commanded by God for us to Be Thankful In All Things
God expects us to give Thanks. Notice that Paul did not say “for” everything give thanks, but in everything.
We are commanded to Give Thanks In Everything; Whether life is going good or going bad we ought to give him Thanks. That may seem very hard to do at times. It is easy to give God thanks when all is going well but why should I give him thanks when things are not so well.
It easy to give thanks when I have a job, but when I jobless it is difficult to do so. It easy to give thanks when I am in good health but it is hard at times when you sick and you feel like God has abandoned you?
How many of you have felt like God has abandoned you at times? I have felt so many times. It is like you praying but God not hearing. Yet God expects us to give thanks in the Good and in The Bad times. He didn’t say FOR everything but IN everything give thanks.
Evil will happen to believers, and it does not come from God, so they should not thank him for it. But when evil strikes, they can still be thankful for God’s presence and for the good he will accomplish through the distress. Paul had learned that “God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.
Giving Thanks In All Things Develops Us Into Better People
When you are living in God’s Will and Working in his Divine Timing nothing doesn’t simply happen by chance. God has his hand on your life.
Sometimes we see a brother or sister stray and we say they have departed from God but you do not know the truth. The Prodigal son was not written off by his Father and you and I have no right to write off anyone who is a child of God.
It was during that time of being away from the Father’s presence that the Prodigal experienced a time of being broken and it caused him to change. During times of challenges and COVID God can use it to develop people.
Usually God uses difficult times to build people’s character and strengthen their faith. It is easy to give thanks for the blessings; it is more difficult to give thanks for the blessings in disguise. By far the most difficult task is to give thanks in everything—even the situations that make no sense or are extremely painful.
Yet this difficult task has been assigned to all believers for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Learning to give thanks in everything means learning to trust God completely, knowing that he is in charge, and understanding that all that happens is part of a larger picture that believers may not see.
When a believer can give thanks so willingly, he or she has trusted that God is completely in control of all situations and is working out his will.
ONE DAY YOU WILL TELL YOUR STORY OF HOW YOU OVERCAME WHAT YOU WENT THROUGH AND IT WILL BE SOMEONE ELSE’S SURVIVAL GUIDE
The Bible encourages us to always be thankful. That’s easy when God answers prayer and delivers us from problems. But it isn’t always easy when things go wrong. So how can we remain thankful in the midst of suffering?
We have two choices to make. The first is to praise God in spite of what’s going on in our lives. Or another way to say that is, in the midst of our troubles and hardships, we can rejoice over the things that are not wrong in our lives.The second choice is to ask, “God, what can I learn from this?
What do You want to teach me through this so that I may be closer to You and rejoice more fully in Your goodness?” Those are not easy questions, and the answers are often hard to hear.
Sometimes we can only grasp the important lessons in our lives when we go through difficult times. Thank God that the hard times will lead you to better things. In the midst of suffering, give thanks to God and trust Him to lead you to bigger and better things.
What Should We Give Thanks About?
Be Thankful That Heaven Is Your Home
Luke 10:20 However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
The main thing we can all be thankful is that we have our names written in the Lambs Book of Life.
We are heaven-bound; We know who Jesus is.
The most important knowledge to have is not scientific knowledge, it is not Business knowledge, it is not technological knowledge but it is Knowledge about God. We should be thankful that God in his Grace has made himself known to us.
Be Thankful For Life
Today more than ever during this time of COVID we ought to be thankful that we have life. Be thankful for that.
WHEN OUR TIME COMES WE ALL HAVE TO GO BUT UNTIL THAT TIMES COMES OUR SOVEREIGN LORD WILL PROTECT US FROM ANY INTIMIDATING ANY TERRIFYING REALITY
RAVI ZACCHARIAS
God has protected us from the COVID this year. While it helps to wash your hands and wear masks – those things are not 100 percent foolproof. It is God who has been our protector this year – Thank God for his protection. Be Thankful to God for Sparing Your Life.
How Can We Give God Thanks?
1. Stop Complaining
The oppositive of giving thanks is Complaining! How many of you know people who like to complain? It seems some people their spiritual gift is complaining. No matter how much God blesses them they can find fault with the blessing.
We suffer from Goldilocks syndrome – “The porridge is too hot, the porridge is too cold, This chair it too hard, this bed is too hard”.
One thing about little kids is they dont hold back their tongue if you buy them something they dont like. A lot of kids will complain this Christmas about the gifts they get. Now because it is a little child so you can understand that, but we have adults who havent grown up in this area.
They always complaining! A wife could buy her husband a brand new wallet for Christmas and the man will complain – “you couldnt put money in it ?”
Thankfulness is the opposite of complaining. The Israelites had more to be thankful for than any people of their time, yet they were guilty of doing the most complaining. For 40 years they wandered around the desert and griped and complained about what they were having to go through, when all the while, they were there through their own doings – Numbers 13-14. You might not be happy about your situation, but at least be thankful that there is a God in Heaven who loves you and cares for you!
2. With Our Lips
Psalms 34:1-2 I will extol the Lord at all times;
his praise will always be on my lips.
I will glory in the Lord;
let the afflicted hear and rejoice.
Daniel was a man who for 3 times each day he gave God thanks. God expects us to thank him with our lips.
When Jesus healed 10 Lepers he asked where are the other 9 lepers? Use your mouth to thank God for his blessings on you.
The famous song we sing in church goes like this :-
Praise God, from whom all blessings flow Praise Him, all creatures here below Praise Him above, ye heavenly host Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
The first part of your church service every sunday is a time of worship where you give God thanks for all he has done for you during the past week. WE use our lips to thank him during this time.
3. Offering Yourselves As A Living Sacrifice
Romans 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
An offering is something that we do willingly. In every church service you receive an offering. If it were a robbery, we would have used guns. That is not giving. Or we would have had burly ushers towering over you. That is not something you do willingly. An offering is something where you say “I want to do this.”
Greg Laurie
God wants you and he wants to use you. It is one of the best ways to express your gratitude to him. We ought to offer ourselves to God.
Christianity was birthed in sacrifice? Jesus, the most faithful man who ever lived—faithful in devotions, completely sinless in His life—and yet He died the most torturous and painful death of anyone who ever lived. The one closest to God was asked to sacrifice the most.
Paul tells us in Rom 12:1 that we’re to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, that we receive Christ’s sacrifice. He calls us to a life of a sacrifice. That on a daily basis we offer ourselves back to God to be used as He would. He says that’s the picture of the Christian life. And while He was on this earth Jesus told His disciples that’s what discipleship is all about.
Jesus said it best. The harvest is ripe but the laborers are few. Not many people are willing to offer themselves to God. Offer yourselves to God as a way of giving thanks To Him.
4. Have a Heart Of Gratitude
Greg Laurie says Many times we focus in on what is wrong in our lives and we forget to thank God for all of the things that are right. We should have an attitude of gratitude. An attitude that simply recognizes that God is in control of all circumstances that surround our lives. That He both leads us to still water and stormy seas. It is all part of the process making us more like Jesus Christ.
We need to have a heart of gratitude to him.I am sure most of you are familiar with Communion Sunday. I Love how Nancy Demoss put it.
“In this uniquely Christian ceremony, as we remember His death and celebrate our salvation, we are confronted again with the weight of our sin. It hangs in the stillness of the air around us, in the sacred silence that envelops our mind and emotions.
For a few quiet moments, we are stripped of everything that normally distracts us from the things that matter most–no meetings to attend, no chores that need doing, no business to occupy our mind. One by one, the elements rest in our hand as we wait for others to be served.
There’s nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. We are reminded that our very lives hang on the reality of what these items represent.Knowing what Jesus did for us will help us to have a heart of gratitude So when we partake of Communion, we are engaged in gratitude. Gratitude to God. Gratitude for the gospel. From guilt, through grace, to gratitude … all in one life-giving motion.”
Application
Today I just want to ask 1 thing of you. As thankful people; As a people who have an attitude of gratitude for God; As we remember what Jesus Christ did for us on that cross.
There are people less fortunate than you that needs love especially druing this time. It could be a hamper, it could be some cash, it could even be some encouragement. God has blessed you to be a blessing. You never know what a little gift you give to someone will do for them.
Inspiration
I would like to end with a story from a book that I read called Choosing Gratitude.
When real estate developer Peter Cummings first assumed his position as chairman of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in 1998, he began writing personal thank- you notes to any donor who contributed $500 or more to the orchestra.
Among the many notes that went out under his hand was one addressed to Mary Webber Parker, daughter of one of Detroit’s leading families from an earlier generation.
She had moved away from Detroit nearly a lifetime ago, settled in California, and was now widowed, residing in an upscale nursing home outside of Hartford, Connecticut.
And for some reason, she had decided to send a one-time check of $50,000 to her hometown symphony. Peter’s letter to Mary was, as usual, prompt and gracious … and unexpected.
It must have thrilled the heart of this elderly widow (who had been back to Detroit only twice in the past twenty years) to hear of the orchestra’s revitalization, made possible in part by her generous contribution.
Two weeks later, she wrote pledging another $50,000. Within days, Peter had written her again, expressing his delighted gratitude and offering to come over from Michigan to visit with her sometime just to tell her thanks.
He made no appeal for putting Mrs. Parker on the annual giving campaign–no “ask,” as they say in fund-raising circles. Just a kind, personal attempt to say thankyou. Months passed.
Then, in a letter dated June 13, Mary Webber Parker accepted Peter’s request to come visit her in the fall. And if he wouldn’t mind, she would like to give, not $50,000, but $500,000 to the Detroit symphony.
Not once, but once a year–for five years.² Two and a half million dollars! Not out of duty. Not out of coercion. Not because she didn’t have plenty of other suitors who would have bent over backwards to lure her as a benefactor.
She did it because someone was thankful. Genuinely thankful. That’s the effervescent power of gratitude–the power to freshen the stale air of everyday life.
