Today, I will discuss the importance of expressing gratitude to the LORD and being thankful. I will pair this with prayer, scripture, and a story time, and discuss the different levels of thankfulness.
First, I want to say a quick prayer: "Thank You, LORD, for every single thing that You've done. Thank You for guiding and protecting me. Thank You for waking me up this morning. Thank You for giving me this podcast and allowing me to make an impact on other people's lives. Thank You for giving me the words to speak, working through me, and using me as a vessel for Your work, LORD. You have done so many amazing things in my life, and I am beyond thankful for You. Thank you for everyone who is reading this right now. I pray that whatever it is that they are supposed to receive from this episode that they receive it and implement it in their daily lives. You are so amazing, LORD. I love You with every ounce of my being. In Jesus' name, Amen."
I really wanted to make an episode today about thankfulness because it is so important for us to be thankful, for us to express gratitude to the LORD every single day. We should be thanking the LORD for things that He has done in our lives and things that He is going to continue to do in our lives. Expressing gratitude helps us in so many different ways, which we will get into a little later.
Now let's get into some scripture:
"give thanks in everything; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus." -1 Thessalonians 5:18
"Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God."
-Philippians 4:6
So we can see in these verses that it is so important for us to be thankful. We need to thank God the Father in the name of our LORD Jesus Christ. We shouldn't worry about anything, but with prayer and petition and thanksgiving, present our requests to the LORD.
"Devote yourselves to prayer; stay alert in it with thanksgiving."
-Colossians 4:2
So last week, I talked about prayer and being persistent in your prayers. Today, some of these scriptures will go hand in hand with last week because it's so important for us to express gratitude and be thankful during our persistent prayers. We should also be thanking Him for the things that we are asking Him for, even though we haven't received them yet.
"Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful. By it, we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire."
-Hebrews 12:28-29
We receive a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and we have to be thankful for that. Whenever we are saved by Jesus Christ, we have eternal life in heaven with Jesus and God the Father. Our God is a consuming fire. I pray the prayer all the time for passion, desire, and the consuming fire of the LORD to overcome me and make it where I can't eat, sleep, or do anything without Him, because I never want to forget that need for Him. Our God is so great and mighty, and we need Him every moment or every second of every day. We cannot do this without Him. Whenever the LORD provides things in our lives, it's so important for us to be thankful.
"Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his faithful love endures forever." -Psalm 107:1
So I said there are different levels of thankfulness, and I'm going to just go into a story time. When I was at this women's conference about a month ago, one of the speakers was going over thankfulness. She made this demonstration, and I thought it was so great. I have been wanting to make an episode about expressing gratitude to the LORD and thankfulness, but after that conference and listening to what she had to say and the demonstration she had, I knew that I had to come on here and go over this with you guys.
The way that she explained the levels of thankfulness is being at a child's table and being at an adult's table. Whenever we first start with thankfulness, if it's your first time expressing gratitude to the LORD and being thankful, you start at the child's table. This looks like thanking the LORD for waking you up in the morning. Thanking the LORD for the different things that He has done throughout your life. Making a list of things and just really reflecting and thinking of all the things God has done. If you haven't done this or don't practice doing this every day, I highly recommend that you just take a few minutes every single day to write down a few things that you are thankful for that God is doing in your life. That is going to help so much with our outlook on life. It will help you realize all the good that God has done, and it is going to help you stay grounded during the hardships that you face.
Once you start practicing that thankfulness every day and you are expressing that gratitude to the LORD, the more that you get into the habit of this, you will notice that you do it more and more. Once you get to the maturity of this other level of thankfulness, this level looks like thanking the LORD even if things don't happen the way that you want them to. Once you are at the adult's table, you will thank the LORD even though you didn't get that job, even though you are going through a rough time, even though you got that bad news, even though this traumatic thing happened in your life. You will still thank the LORD even though you are going through things. Also, even if the LORD doesn't provide the things you are asking for in the future, you will still be grateful. We serve a mighty, good, gracious, merciful, powerful, and loving God.
Expressing gratitude and being thankful for things in our lives is a key to getting through hardships. The LORD will always provide the strength and everything that we need, but He is full of joy whenever we come to Him with thankful hearts, even though we are going through hardships. It also helps us to get through it and know that our God is good, Sovereign, Holy, Mighty, and He will always come through for us. Even though right now you may be going through a rough time, God is going to come through for you.
So if you haven't been thanking the LORD for the things that He has done in your life, start today. Get out a piece of paper and a pen and write down a list of things that God has done for you, and thank Him for those things. Take a few minutes every day to do this.
If you are already in the habit of thanking God every day, I want you to reflect and think, "Am I at that level of even though things in my life are not going the way that I planned, I'm still thanking the LORD?" Are you still expressing gratitude even when tragedies and hardships happen? Think "Do I know that God is good, sovereign, and mighty, and He has great plans for me even when things don't go the way I planned? Even through the hard times in my life, even if the thing that I'm asking the LORD for doesn't ever come, do I still know that He is mighty and gracious, loving, good, sovereign, and Holy?"
So I hope this episode helped you guys to realize the importance of thankfulness. That is it for today's episode. In Next week's episode, we will be talking about God's promises and how He always comes through for us, so make sure you stay tuned for that. I will see you guys next week.
I love you guys so much.
Never forget to choose faith over fear.
-Lorena Camille (Faith Fuels My Fire)
p.s. If you'd rather listen to Faith-based, spiritual growth, mindset, and mental health tips, then check out my podcast. There I will share my personal experiences, stories I've never told before, and bring you along with this hot mess life of mine. New episodes every week.
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Scripture taken from The Christian Standard Bible. Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible®, and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers, all rights reserved.
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