Happy Thanksgiving
With today being Thanksgiving I had to just have to write a short blog post! I would first like to wish you and your family a safe and Happy Thanksgiving! I myself find Thanksgiving to be my favorite holiday. In this post, I want to talk about what the Bible says about giving thanks. It seems to be always a tradition for people to reflect on what they are most thankful for during this time of the year. Then the day after today, people will go out and do some shopping. It seems like our society just wants us to be Thankful one day of the year, and the next day go out and splurge all our money.
What Does the Bible Say?
So, what does the Bible say about giving thanks? Are we only to be thankful just one day out of the full year? Paul told us in 1 Thessalonians 5:18 (AMP), “in every situation [no matter what the circumstances] be thankful and continually give thanks to God; for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.”. So, are you always thankful in every situation? Are you always thankful no matter your circumstances? Are you still thankful when you are faced with a sickness? Are you still thankful during the death of a loved one? Are you thankful when things get stressful at work? I am sure we can all find areas of our lives where we need to be more thankful.
Focus on God
Psalms 107:1 (NKJV) tells us, “Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.”. No matter what circumstances we are in, we will always have one thing to be consistently thankful for, and that is our salvation through Jesus Christ. When a trial comes your way, the devil wants to see you get knocked down and depressed. The devil wants you to lose your focus as a believer and focus all your attention and energy into the circumstances, rather than taking the time to go to your Heavenly Father in prayer. The more time you spend worrying and being depressed over your circumstances is more time you give to the enemy and your flesh.
The Flesh vs. The Spirit
When most people lose their focus on God, they always tend to blame it on an attack from the enemy. While certainly, this can happen, we must remember that the problem is often ourselves. Sometimes our flesh can get in the way of things, you know that thing we inherited from the fallen nature. When we are born again, we are to walk in the spirit. Galatians 5:16 (NKJV) tells us, “I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.”. This is all a part of putting on the new creation we are in Christ Jesus! A person who is born again should be giving less and less attention to their desires of the flesh and should be giving more attention to their spirit man inside of them.
Walk in the Spirit
So, if you are struggling with always being thankful and joyful, then I encourage you to take some time and begin to put on the spirit man that is inside of you more than ever before. The best way to do this is to get into the Word of God daily and let it transform your mind. God does not just want us to be thankful one day a year, He wants us to be thankful every day and worship Him always!
Challenge
I would like to leave you with a challenge, instead of reflecting on what you are thankful during this time of the year, I want you to journal one thing each day that you are thankful for. I would even encourage you to find something specific to each day as you do this for a whole year. I think this is a great habit for every Christian to get into. Walking in the spirit involves us changing our mindset, which means developing new habits, so why not start adopting one today!