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Thank You from Refreshing Hope Ministries on Vimeo.

Today I want to talk about the importance of being thankful. Jesus lived on Earth as our example, and He was so thankful and full of praise. No matter what you have been through, there are still some things that you can be thankful about. An important one is that you woke up today.  For some people, yesterday was their last day on Earth. I hope they enjoyed it. We are not promised tomorrow, so don’t take the gift of living another day for granted.

Jesus just overflowed with the Spirit sometimes and He spontaneously rejoiced and gave thanks to His Father.

In that hour Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. Luke 10:21 NKJV

Being thankful for what the Lord has done for you is important, because your attitude determines your spiritual altitude. It has returns, and when you are thankful, good things are more likely to come your way than when you have a whining, pessimistic, “woe is me” type of attitude. Try smiling and holding the door for others, and you might find that you enjoy it.

There seems to be an ignorance today that your attitude toward God, or life, or others doesn’t matter, when nothing could be further from the truth. Where did they read that? Certainly not in the Bible. Jesus said that if we loved one another then everyone would know that we were His disciples (John 13:35).

Another example is one of the fruits of the Spirit: Patience. Patience is not just being able to wait in a line, it is the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset. Everyone at the DMV waits in a line, but not everyone is patient.

There have been so many times when I have just been going through my day,  perhaps whistling a tune, maybe thanking God for having work to do, because there have been many times when I didn’t, and suddenly He would give me something that I secretly needed, or merely desired. I’ve been given printers, scanners, computers, cables, money, and more. Things that I told no one about would find their way to me. As I was a blessing to others, God would use others to be a blessing to me.

As you delight in Him, He takes notice, and your attitude today actually matters.  Consider these scriptures:

* (Psalm 37:4 NKJV) Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.

To Delight means: “To take great pleasure in” as in: “They delight in playing hide and seek.”

* (2 Corinthians 9:7 NKJV). So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver.

To be Cheerful means: “Noticeably happy and optimistic” as in: “How can she be so cheerful at six o'clock in the morning?”

* (Colossians 3:17 NKJV) And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

Thanks means: “an expression of gratitude.”

To Delight, be cheerful, to be thankful, these are all to be a part of our attitude. Does that sound like you? It doesn’t always sound like me, but it is my goal. David wrote many of the Psalms and they are full of thankfulness. This message is not rocket science, but an extremely simple one that we all know in our heart.

The opposite side of this coin is complaining, and greatly growing in popularity today, entitlement. Complaining is defined as: “to express dissatisfaction or annoyance about an event or the state of affairs.” Entitlement is thinking that God owes you something and then getting upset with Him if you don’t get it. Yes He loves us, but we should remember that we are in His debt, and He is not our pet. There are examples of these attitudes as well. The tenth time that the Israelites began to murmur and complain in the wilderness, the Lord said this:

(Numbers 14:27-29 NKJV) “I have heard the complaints which the children of Israel make against Me. Say to them, ‘As I live,’ says the LORD, ‘just as you have spoken in My hearing, so I will do to you: The carcasses of you who have complained against Me shall fall in this wilderness, all of you who were numbered, according to your entire number, from twenty years old and above.”

And then in Deuteronomy:

(Deuteronomy 28:47-48 NKJV) “Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of everything, therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything;

Being thankful has its rewards. Whining and complaining has it rewards as well. So don’t think that being a Christian negates the Bible. The God that hated complaining then, still does. The God that loves a cheerful giver, still does. Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart, still works.

Yesterday was 24 hours of your life that you lived and is now gone, so I hope that you enjoyed it with a smile because it isn’t coming back. Let us be encouraged today and to try and keep a positive attitude. Those around you will appreciate it, and that list includes angels, the Holy Spirit, and the great crowd of witnesses that have gone on before us.

You can pray this with me if you like:

Prayer: Heavenly Father, please cleanse and refine me from the inside out. Purge the bad attitudes out of me and fill me with Your peace and grace. I am sorry for the times that I have ignored you and became so caught up in what I was doing, that I forgot to just tell you: Thank You. So today I want You to know that I am so grateful, so thankful, for all that You have done for me and I so appreciate You. I just wanted You to know that, in the name of Jesus Christ I pray. Amen.