“Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
Philippians 4:6
God knows our needs and desires before we even ask. God wants us to express our thanksgiving for the mercy we have been given and value it. He wants us to realize our dependence on Him. When we start our prayers with thanksgiving our sorrows will cease and we will be overcome with such gratefulness our needs and wants will fade. It is the recipe for a godly contentment and peace in our souls.
Friend don’t be discouraged as you travel along through this life. Focus on all the blessings God has given you. The enemy can’t torment a grateful rejoicing heart for long. Follow this Biblical guideline in your prayers.
Be challenged in your prayer life to come before God with a heart full of thanksgiving and praise. It will make all the difference and change your perspective on your troubles.
“Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms.”
Psalm 95:2
Tammy Edwards
James 1:27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
In the busyness of life, and especially in this season of joy and celebration, it is easy to get lost in the "things" we are busy with and lose a sense of connection with others.
God knew the importance of human connection when he said to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction. Don`t just leave a basket on the step. Step inside and share a laugh, maybe even a tear or two, and a prayer. Who are the ones in your life that are alone? Who has suffered loss and grief in the past few years? Who is single and has quiet empty evenings? Who is an empty nester struggling with the sudden lack of activity in the home? Who is struggling silently with depression, anxiety or discouragement?
Pure religion is to cultivate eyes to see and ears to hear the needs of those around. Get lunch together. Go shopping together. Play a game together. Talk. Listen. Ask questions. You will find this opens more doors to help others bear the load and stand up a little straighter beneath them.
You don`t have to have the perfect words. Sometimes "I care", followed by silence or shared tears is enough.
If you are going through a hard season of life yourself, this challenge is also for you. There is purpose and fulfillment found in ministering and sharing in the lives of others. It can lessen the weight of your own burdens.
Be there for someone today.
—René Smith
James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
As we leave the formal Thanksgiving Season and proceed toward the rush of Christmas, pause long enough to consider the impact of Thanksgiving. What is your takeaway? Do you love God more for His gifts or for His personhood? Does the week of Thanksgiving give you a greater hunger to know Him and to spend time with Him or was it just your requisite moment of thanks that is set aside as you get back to living?
It is easy to regard the gifts God gives and spend our times cultivating and enjoying those gifts to the exclusion of the Giver. That is when your gifts become your idols.
Let Thanksgiving be a beginning. This Christmas Season purpose in your heart to follow hard after the Giver. If Christ really is the most important thing in your life, spend time FIRST with Him. Speak of Him FIRST with others. Keep him FIRST in all things. —René Smith
The holiday presents itself as a fitting resolution to the year’s highs and lows, joys and sorrows, successes and failures. It’s timed perfectly to allow for restful reflection before the generally happy chaos of Christmas. But what if Thanksgiving was meant to be a beginning, and not just another over-fed ending?
Thanksgiving isn’t ever the end in the Christian life because gratitude cannot bear the weight of that responsibility. Gratitude is good — and a means to something greater. It’s meant to fuel our faith in God and deepen our love for God, the Giver. Gratitude does look back, but it’s only a matter of time before it has the Christian looking forward. John Piper says,
The Bible rarely, if ever, motivates Christian living with gratitude. Yet this is almost universally presented in the church as the “driving force in authentic Christian living.” I agree that gratitude is a beautiful and utterly indispensible Christian affection. No one is saved who doesn’t have it. But you will search the Bible in vain for explicit connections between gratitude and obedience. (Future Grace, 3)
God means for our appreciation for all he has done to propel us to believe in all that he will do, and to live more fully for his glory as your greatest treasure. It’s the whole shape of the Christian heart and life. God does not bless you simply so that you’ll be filled with thanks and give him recognition, but so that you’ll be filled with faith and joy in him. -Marshall Segal
The LORD hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad. Psalm 126:3
Megan Hill
Thanking God together is an effective guard against ingratitude. On our own, we may be tempted to forget, to take for granted, and to ignore the God from whom every good and perfect gift comes (James 1:17). On our own, we may fall into the ways of the ungodly, who do not “honor him as God or give thanks to him” (Rom. 1:21). Together, though, surrounded by the thanks of others, we join in and are thankful.
What are your traditions of collective thanks? There are many ways to stop and actively praise God for His wonderful works during our gatherings and celebrations. Make Him the focus, the Giver of all Good Gifts!!
Psalm 100:4–5
Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations. —Joe Thorn
Does gratitude characterize your thoughts of God? Thankfulness is a good test of your faith. Its absence demonstrates that your faith is more lip service than experiential knowledge. Your days, whether easy or difficult, should be filled with thanksgiving because while life changes drastically, your God remains the same forever. He is constant—constantly good, loving, and faithful.
Acts 2:41–47
So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. And they devoted themselves to the apostles` teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
The early Christian church was a rejoicing, praising church that is filled with thanksgiving, magnifying the grace and glory of God. They were a thankful people. But why was this? . . . What is a Christian? Well, Christians are men and women who know that they are what they are by the grace of God. Their sins are forgiven. Why? . . . Christians know that they owe everything to the grace of God in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. They have received it all as a free gift . . . Now if you can believe a thing like that and not feel grateful and thankful, then I do not understand you. It is impossible.
"What hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?" 1 Corinthians 4:7
“Gratitude is the proper response to an abundance of gifts. Gratitude is the posture of the soul that most readily increases receptivity. Gratitude demands humility, since only those who acknowledge their dependence, their need, and their delight in the goodness and kindness of another can be grateful. Give thanks always and for everything. And be specific.” Joe Rigney
God has given us all things to enjoy. Be specific this week in your expressions of thanks to the Lord. Cultivate the posture of gratitude and praise God for the gifts we enjoy.
