GIVING THANKS IN WORSHIP!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

MONDAY APRIL 22, 2024.

SUBJECT: GIVING THANKS IN WORSHIP! 

Memory verse: "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;" (Philippians 4 vs 6.) 

READ: Psalm 69 vs 30; 100 vs 4; Colossians 2 vs 6 - 7; 4 vs 2:

Psalm 69:30: I will praise the name of the LORD with a song, and will magnify Him with thanksgiving.

100:4: Enter into His gate with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His Name.

Colossians 2:6: As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, 

2:7: rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.

4:2: Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving.

INTIMATION:

The Christian works in thanksgiving for what God has done through His grace, acknowledging God’s goodness, which expresses your faith and confidence in Him. There is no powerful living apart from a life of thanksgiving which, of course, is the will of God for us.The Christian is zealous in the Lord because of his or her salvation that has come from the Lord through the offering of His Son Jesus Christ as a propitiation for our sins. Prayer and petitions (supplication) are to be made in a spirit of thanking God for all that He has done in our lives. When one truly understands the grace of God, He or she will respond in thanksgiving for all that God has done through Jesus. 

God desires an attitude of thanksgiving, not just an act of it. Thanksgiving is an application for more. Being thankful for all the things He has done and is doing in your life is a pathway to receiving your petitions from Him. Therefore, when you have petitioned God for something, immediately begin to thank Him in trust and confidence that the thing you have asked for is on the way coming. The apostle Paul counseled all believers to give thanks in everything; for this is the Will of God in Christ Jesus for them (First Thessalonians 5 vs 18.)

The apostle Paul lived a life of thankfulness to God and preached the same to all believers. In some of the passages we read today, his counsel on thanksgiving, as an integral part of worship, is clearly expressed. In our memory verse (Philippians 4 vs 6), the apostle Paul counsels all believers to be thankful for what we ask in prayer, and to continuously be thankful and grateful for what He has already done in the past, what He is doing now, and what He is going to do in the future, including answer to your petition. 

Jesus, our Messiah and perfect example, lived a life of thankfulness during His earthly ministry. He knows the power of thanksgiving when communing with the Father, and gave thanks to the Father always. For example; He gave thanks to God when He broke the seven loaves and fishes and fed the four thousand (Matthew 15 vs 36). He gave thanks to God when He took the five loaves and two fishes and fed five thousand (John 6 vs 11). He also thanked God for hearing Him at the tomb of the dead Lazarus (John 11 vs 41). And He gave thanks to God when He gave the bread and wine to His disciples at the Lord’s Supper.(Mark 14 vs 22 - 23).

Thanksgiving magnifies the Name of the LORD (Psalm 69 vs 30), and opens the gate of the court of the LORD (Psalm 100 vs 4). It also, multiplies what we have received (Second Corinthians 9 vs 12). For instance, when Jesus lifted up the bread and fishes and gave thanks it multiplied severally and thousands were fed by the meal of a child. Also, the power of thanksgiving in prayer helps us abound in Christ, drawing our life-giving strength from Him (Colossians 2 vs 7). The more we draw our strength from Him, the less we are fooled by those who falsely claim to have the answers to life’s problems. If Christ is our strength we will be free from human regulations.

This kind of lifestyle of thankfulness is an evidence of a grateful heart. If a person is grateful for what he already has, it is an indication that the individual is mature enough to receive other blessings. But if a person is always complaining about what he has now, why should the Lord bother to give him anything else to crab and gripe about When we realize how far God had to send His Son in order to redeem us from condemnation, we respond with a life of thanksgiving. Our good works, therefore, are works of thanksgiving, not works of merit. Christians are motivated because of what they already have in Christ. 

Prayer: Abba Father, there is none like You. Your steadfastness never seizes, and Your mercies never come to an end. Your compassion never fails. I will forever remain thankful to You for all Your great and wondrous works in my life. What You cannot do for me let it remain undone, and what You cannot give me may I never have it, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!