Give thanks in all circumstances
“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5:18 (NIV)
Have Radical Gratitude in All Circumstances
In many cultures around the world, people set aside certain days or seasons for giving thanks. But God wants you to be intentional about your thankfulness every day. He wants you to develop this spiritual habit, one that is reflected in the life of a radical believer. The more deeply you understand God’s love, the more grateful you’re going to be.
What does it mean to be radically grateful?
The Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 5:18, “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (NIV). In every circumstance give thanks—because it’s God’s will for your life. That’s radical gratitude.
How can you be thankful even in difficult circumstances? You can thank God in every circumstance because he is in control. He can bring good out of evil. He can turn around the worst mistakes you’ve made. No matter what happens, God isn’t going to stop loving you.
You can find a hundred things to be thankful for in any circumstance, even when the circumstance stinks.
Radical gratitude—being thankful in all circumstances—is God’s will because it creates fellowship. What do I mean by that? Gratitude always builds deeper relationships between you and other people and between you and God.
If you want to get closer to someone, start expressing gratitude to that person. Maybe you’re feeling distant from your spouse. You’ve lost that lovin’ feeling because you stopped doing the things that created that lovin’ feeling early on—and now you take each other for granted. Start doing what you did when you were dating: Express gratitude. Write little notes of kindness and encouragement. Call or text during the day, just to tell your spouse that you’re thankful for them.
Do you want to build your small group? Don’t just go to your gathering. During the week, contact the people in your group. Say, “I’m grateful for you, and here’s why.” You’ll find that the more grateful you are for your group, the more your group will bond.
Let us “enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations” (Psalm 100:4-5 NIV).
Daily Effective Faith Quotes
Don’t Plan Without God - Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. Psalm 37:5
God seems to have a delightful way of upsetting the plans we have made, when we have not taken Him into account. We get ourselves into circumstances that were not chosen by God, and suddenly we realise that we have been making our plans without Him— that we have not even considered Him to be a vital, living factor in the planning of our lives. And yet the only thing that will keep us from even the possibility of worrying is to bring God in as the greatest factor in all of our planning.
In spiritual issues it is customary for us to put God first, but we tend to think that it is inappropriate and unnecessary to put Him first in the practical, everyday issues of our lives. If we have the idea that we have to put on our “spiritual face” before we can come near to God, then we will never come near to Him. We must come as we are.
Don’t plan with a concern for evil in mind. Does God really mean for us to plan without taking the evil around us into account? “Love…thinks no evil” (1 Corinthians 13:4-5). Love is not ignorant of the existence of evil, but it does not take it into account as a factor in planning. When we were apart from God, we did take evil into account, doing all of our planning with it in mind, and we tried to reason out all of our work from its standpoint.
Don’t plan with a rainy day in mind. You cannot hoard things for a rainy day if you are truly trusting Christ. Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled…” (John 14:1). God will not keep your heart from being troubled. It is a command— “Let not….” To do it, continually pick yourself up, even if you fall a hundred and one times a day, until you get into the habit of putting God first and planning with Him in mind. Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One Who is leading.
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