The How

Ps.9:^1-2 “I will praise you, Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all the marvellous things you have done. I will be filled with joy because of you. I will sing praises to your name, O Most High.”

It is one thing to know ‘why’ you should do something, but it is a totally different thing to know ‘how’. Our focus today is on how to live a life of thanksgiving to God. The first way is to thank God by Singing From Your Heart. Can the tone of your voice give your expression a different meaning? Certainly. God says sing from your heart; meaning, every time you show up before God, alone or in a crowd, God wants you to sing from your heart. God wants you to mean what you are singing. You cannot be nonchalant and sing from your heart at the same time. Ps.147:⁷ “Sing out your thanks to him; sing praises to our God . . .” (LB, emphasis added). Forget about yourself; stop looking at yourself because nobody else is looking at you, just focus on Jesus.

The second way to thank God is by Telling Others The Good News. By telling other people about Jesus, we are saying ‘Thank You’ to God. Isa.12:⁴ “…Thank the Lord and praise his name! Tell the world about his wonderful love!” (LB, emphasis added). God wants us to proclaim His love to the world. A lot of people are dying of HIV and of cancer in the world today, and there is no real cure for these diseases. If you have a friend that has a cure for HIV and cancer but is keeping it to himself and refusing to share it with the world. What would you do? How would you feel? I hope you would not be happy about that and I hope that you are not that friend. I would confront such a friend and remind him that God gave him the cure for a purpose and the world needs it.

Sadly, a lot of us are sitting on the solution to the peace of the world, to the eternity of mankind, His Name is Jesus. The solution to the problems a lot of homes are facing is with you. God wants you to reach out to people that are far from Him and tell them about Jesus so that God can invade their lives. But you keep quiet; that needs to change. In Christ, we say past forgiven, purpose for living, home in Heaven, Jesus is alive! But when we do not reach out to our neighbours and friends about the hope we have, what we are saying is – past forgiven, purpose for living, home in Heaven, everybody else can go to hell. That is a life of ingratitude. God wants us to be grateful and we express our gratitude when we tell the world about Jesus.

In one drama, a man that died and on his way to hell, saw his neighbour going to heaven. So, he stopped the entire procession and protested to God. “No way! That man cannot be going to heaven!” he said, “we did life together, our children even celebrated their birthdays together. But he never told me about Jesus – not once!” Yes, that was just a drama but how would you feel if you see the friend you ate lunch with every day, in hell but you are in heaven – happy, fulfilled? I hope not. God is relying on us to reach out to people that are far from Him and it is a way of giving thanks to God.

Prayer: Father, help me not to be silent about the good things You have done for me; I will sing from my heart and I will tell of Your goodness, in Jesus Name. Amen!