Giving Thanks
I love the season of Thanksgiving, and fall time in Virginia is one of the most beautiful times of the year. I love going to Thanksgiving dinner to spend time with family members that I have not seen in a while.
The Holy Spirit has been leading me in this season to not just be thankful now but to live a thankful life always.
I live right outside of Washington D.C. and life here never stops moving fast. Even as a pastor, it is very easy for my week to quickly get away from me. It takes an intentional life to live a joyful-filled life in the Lord. It is hard to see all the beauty that God has put in our lives when we are moving at warp speed.
I love these verses from the Apostle Paul:
1 Thessalonians 5:15–18 (NLT): See that no one pays back evil for evil, but always try to do good to each other and to all people. Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.
In these verses are the characteristics of living a thankful life.
First we must deal with how we treat each other. Even in Christian communities, there is too much verbal violence towards one another. We have the power to bless someone and we have the power to curse someone with our words. These two actions carry very real power in the spiritual world and in the psyche of a person. Though you are not a god, curses via our words are very real.
You can see the effects of harsh words when a child is bullied at school. And it doesn’t stop in adulthood, it actually gets stronger. As followers of Jesus, we must be in the business of building people up. This may include correcting someone’s theology, which is perfectly fine. What it does not include is launching an attack. We are to be servant leaders in the world, showing people the love of Jesus and helping people turn their lives to the Heavenly Father.
I truly wish I was joyful all the time. What an amazing life it would be to have that all of the time.
There is a very big difference between joy and happiness. Happiness is fleeting, it is an emotion that is here one minute and gone the next minute. As fallen people, we have often confused the search for happiness and the search for joy. Joy is everlasting and provided only by the Lord. It ties directly into a thankful life, when we are able to see the joy in living for God.
You must slow down your life and appreciate the beauty and blessings all around you. The chances are, the Lord has given you so many blessings but you haven’t slowed down long enough to see them. We do not let the glory of the Lord move to the forefront of our minds because we are too busy multitasking our life away.
This is why Paul tells us to never stop praying. When we pray, we stop what we are doing and we spend time with our Heavenly Father. When we pray all the time, we tune our mind to the greatness of God and the more we can see His work in our life.
In all circumstances we are to be thankful.
This is one of the hard truths of Christianity. It is difficult to give thanks in all circumstances. When you are a follower of Jesus, there will be suffering. Jesus went to the cross. He did that for us, so we can expect to have suffering in our own lives.
What it is interesting is that I can see God clearer during times of suffering because I need to rely on Him to see my way through it. We must remember that God is sovereign over all and even in the bad times, God is working.
My challenge to you is to take this season of Thanksgiving and extend it throughout your life, not just this week, but as a daily practice for a lifetime to come.