Be Grateful

Psalm 100:⁴ “Go through His gates, giving thanks; walk through His courts, giving praise. Offer Him your gratitude and praise His holy name.” (The Voice)

One of the things most parents realize very quickly is that children can be selfish. Someone who was new to parenting was very frustrated and he said to me, “Pastor, children are very selfish”. I laughed and said to him, “You were also selfish. You were born selfish”. And that is why when people give us things, our parents say to us, “What do you say?” and we respond, “Thank you”. After a while, all you need to do is look at that child, you do not need to prompt that child anymore. If someone gives your child something, all you need to do is give them the look and they would say thank you if they forgot. Then after a while, you do not even need to look, they just say thank you. That is how most children learn gratitude.

The more grateful you are, the higher you go. You cannot sustain a walk with God with ingratitude. God will move far away from such a person. Psalm 100:⁴ “Enter his gates with thanksgiving go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name.” find something to be thankful to God for because there is always something to grateful for. You can tell yourself to be grateful. Just say thank you to God. One of your biggest assets is God’s presence. And the Bible shows that if you are not grateful, you cannot access His presence. Gratitude is required! Have you tried to do life with ungrateful people? It is not a very pleasant experience. Gratitude is big with God.

And when you are in God’s presence, the biggest thing that you can ever do in life is to let God love you. Just allow God to love you. But you cannot even experience the presence of the Loving in God when you are ungrateful. It is gratitude that ushers you in. And once you are in, it is gratitude that will make you allow God to love you. God wants to love you, allow Him. When we say thank you, we are saying three things. The first thing is I Notice what you have done. Not only do I notice it, but I am also Acknowledging it. You can notice something and ignore it. You can notice something and not acknowledge it. Someone has been nice to you, you notice it, but you ignore it. You are behaving like a spoilt brat.

But when you say thank you, you are noticing and acknowledging. Then you are Celebrating it because you can notice and acknowledge and say so what? What is the big deal? Are you the first person to ever bless somebody with good health or a new car? After all other people are getting airplanes, this is just an ordinary Land Cruiser. And you want me to be saying thank you. Saying thank you means I notice what you have done. I acknowledge it, and I celebrate it.

Prayer: Father, I see what You are doing in my life, I acknowledge Your faithfulness, and I celebrate You. Thank You for loving me, in the Mighty Name of Jesus. Amen!