>for the past few weeks, the pastor at my church has been teaching in a series called “it’s about time…”. each week, he adds, “for…” and whatever the topic is for the week. there have been some really powerful thoughts and ideas in the teachings, so i thought i would make them more widely known.

it’s about time for thankfulness…

Principles of Thanks-giving

1) believe — that God exists and the He revealed himself in Jesus Christ. it is terrible to be grateful and to have no one to thanks, to be awed and to have no one to worship (philip yancey).

who are you thankful to? in general, to no one in particular? does that feel meaningless?

even though we are separated from God, with belief in Christ for eternal life, we have eternal life.

2) inclusive — give thanks in all circumstances, not just in the circumstances that you like. when you are around a genuinely Biblically thankful person, it is awe-inspiring. there are a lot of good things we can be thankful for, but there are a lot of other things, as well like obstacles, lessons learned the hard way, illnesses. the deepest desire of every human heart is to know God more intimately. this Earth is not what we were created for. Biblically thankful people can see the sovereign hand of God even in the worst times.

3) obedience — if thankfulness came naturally to any of us, Paul would not have seen it fit to command us to be thankful. we have to overcome the part of us that is normally, instinctively not thankful to God.

barriers to thankfulness

1) comparison — to others who have more than we do
2) busy-ness — we do not take time to notice what there is to be thankful for.
3) focus — some of us are constantly focused on our troubles, our struggles, not our blessings.
4) undervaluing — certain things we should value higher
friendships are one of the main things we under-value!
5) ego — thankfulness requires humility
6) expectations — we have so much, and we expect that that is what we are entitled to have.

don’t waste another day in an ungrateful spirit. give thanks for 1) spiritual blessings; 2) physical blessings like your car, your food, your health; 3) lessons learned the hard way; and 4) relational blessings like friends, family and new friends.