Rom 1:20-22
• If a man lives on this planet and has never come to a point where He glorifies God with his life, he has failed in his purpose.
• Have you come to a point where you recognise the hand of God in your life and thank Him?
• Your acquisitions, achievements and whatever else you do should cause you to thank God.
2 Tim 3:2
• In most cases, when we become less and less thankful, we will lose whatever we were enjoying.
• If you are ever-thankful for your job, you wouldn’t misbehave because you know God gave it to you.
• Thanksgiving takes away pride from you because thanksgiving has an object that it is focused on.
• When people become ungrateful, pride comes in because they think what they have is because of them.
• How can you see what God has done and not be thankful?
• How can you see what God has created and not be thankful?
• The things you hear, see and interact with should help you glorify God.
• True and sincere thanksgiving, especially the kind that is given in challenging circumstances is a true expression of your faith in God and the honour you have for Him.
• It is easier to say “thank you” when something good has been done but difficult to say it when things haven’t changed.
• It is important to thank God not only for what He has done but also for what He has promised to do even though things don’t look like it.
• Giving thanks for what has been promised is what opens the door for you to have what has been promised.
Rom 4:17-21, 5:2-3
• Faith gives you access to the help of God.
• Walking by faith requires you ignoring something while acknowledging something.
• Faith requires that you choose what to look at and what not to look at.
• You have a choice of what you look at.
2 Cor 4:18, 5:7
• Something must be ignored and something must be deliberately focused on.
• Walking by faith is a choice that you must make every single day.
• You have no rights to complain against God.
• Job 1:20-21
• When we honour God with thanksgiving, God honours us back (1 Sam 2:30).
BENEFITS OF THANKSGIVING
1. CREATES AND INCREASES HEAVEN’S ATMOSPHERE IN OUR LIVES, CHURCHES, HOMES, etc.
(2 Chr 5:13, Jam 1:17, Psa 22:3)
• If a life is full of thanksgiving and praises, that life will be full of God’s atmosphere and everything good can happen in that life.
• God is associated with everything good.
• What kind of atmosphere is around your life?
• Complaining takes you nowhere but down.
2. BRINGS ABOUT FRUITFULNESS, INCREASE AND MULTIPLICATION (Jer 30:19, 33:22)
3. ESTABLISHES US IN THE BLESSING (LUKE 17:17-19, 2 Sam 7:18)
• The reason why we sometimes enjoy something for a short while and get back to not having it is because we are not established in it.
• You need thanksgiving to be established in the new realm God has brought you into.
4. OPENS DOORS AND GATES BY DIVINE INTERVENTION (Acts 16:25-26, Psa 100:4, Isa 60:11)
• If your thanksgiving can open the doors of heaven to make you access God, would it be so hard for it to open doors shut against you by the enemy?