By Rev. Michael Mwangi
Senior Pastor, Fedha Church KAG
• Developing a grateful heart brings incredible blessing in our lives.
• Count your blessings, not your shillings, assets or riches.
• Gratitude helps us see that God’s hand is all over our circumstances and open doors for more blessings and increase in our lives.
• Giving thanks is a means of showing how grateful we are. How else will God know you are grateful. Silence or assuming can never Express it.
• Gratitude comes from a heart that is grateful not one that has plenty.
It demonstrates a spirit of gratitude. Therefore it is not about what you have but who you are.
• Make it a habit of saying thank you even to the people around you especially who have helped you in life.
• Even as the year ends, take some time to say thank you to those who have helped you or contributed to your life in one way or the other.
Reasons why we give thanks
1. Gratitude is a testimony
• When we thank God openly and acknowledge what He has done for us, we proclaim a personal, caring God to the world around us.
• We show that contentment and peace come not from what we have but who we know. It is testimony or proclamation of God's faithfulness and greatness in our lives to the world around us.
Psalm 105:1
Give thanks to the LORD and proclaim his greatness. Let the whole world know what he has done.
• Everyone has a reason or something to thank God for even for the opportunities that come with challenges.
Other blessings are immaterial, spiritual and we can never earn them.
Psalms 103:10
[10] he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities
• We can never quantify his grace and mercies.
2. We get to do his will of God
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
[16] Rejoice always,
[17] pray continually,
[18] give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
give thanks in everything for it is Gods will
3. We acknowledge everything comes from God
James 1:17
[17] Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
Job 1:21
[21]and said:
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will depart.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;
may the name of the Lord be praised.”
4. A test of Christian maturity
• It shows great maturity when you don’t get what you want but you still give thanks. We need to mature to a point that, it is all about God, not what we get from Him
5. Gratitude brings peace
• When we give him our thanks, He gives us supernatural peace.
Philippians 4:6-7
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
6. Gratitude draws us to God
• Thanking God for the magnitude of God’s undeserved kindness draws us to Him. When Jesus healed 10 lepers. All 10 cried out for healing and as they went, they were healed! Certainly, they were all happy, but only one was thankful. Only one came back to Jesus, fell as his feet and thanked him.
• He was drawn back to Jesus by Thanksgiving.
That was his mission and reason for coming back
Luke 17:17-19
Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”
7. Gratitude adds more and open doors for more
When the man came back for thanksgiving, he got a full package. He was made whole and he received more than the others.
He received not only physical healing but spiritual healing. He was blessed opening doors for prosperity and increase in his life
• Ungratefulness locks doors for more., The more you give thanks the more you experience more and new doors open.
8. Gratitude leads to joy
• The overflow of gratitude is joy. It is like when water boils, it produces steam.
• Realizing God’s abundant goodness, even in the hard times, gives you great joy, it is a gateway for joy.
• Psalms 126 shows this very clearly as the Hebrew exiles sang their thanks to God for bringing them back to Israel.
Psalm 126:1-3
When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dreamed. Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.
• At the same time giving thanks result in calmness and joy of inner satisfaction of serving in that manner. Giving thanks is a blessed experience in itself.
Acts 20:35
[35]In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ”
9. Gratitude glorifies God
• This alone would be a reason to give thanks to God. Our gratitude glorifies God as we exalt not the gifts, but the Giver.
• Gratitude helps us realize all we have comes not because of us, but from God and so it results in more thanksgiving.
2 Corinthians 4:15
And as God’s grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory.
10. Gratitude helps us see God. Gratitude opens our spiritual eyes
• There’s a beautiful cycle in giving God thanks: The more we thank Him, the more we see the many things he has done.
• We see Him working in us and around us. Gratitude helps us sense God’s presence, His personal care and His perfect timing.
11. Gratitude brings contentment
• Some people Are unhappy and ungrateful because they focus on what they don’t have instead of what they have.
• Gratitude makes what we have enough. If we aren’t grateful for what God has given us now, getting more won’t satisfy us either. Being thankful is the key to contentment.
1 Timothy 6:6-8
. . . godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and neither can we carry anything out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.
12. Giving thanks helps us focuses on God
• It removes the idea that it is about us. We realize it is all about God but not us.
• When you see what God has done you discover all this is from God and you are or have nothing minus God. It keeps us in the place of humility knowing he is the giver of all we have.
• It helps us to see him for who he is, His care, protection and this makes us dependent on him.
1 Corinthians 4:7
[7]For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?
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