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Devotional, subscribe today In touch with Dr.
Charles Stanley celebrating 45 years of God’s faithfulness in sharing the gospel worldwide. Next on in touch, overflowing with gratitude.
In 1621, the settlers, those new settlers to this new land, thank God for the tremendous crops they had that year and had the first thanksgiving.
And then we come along and George Washington in his first year of inauguration as president, he also recognized the Thanksgiving Day and then we come to 18 63 and you have uh President Lincoln and he’s the first one who made Thanksgiving a real true genuine holiday for a day of Thanksgiving for our country.
So now whether we have Thanksgiving has become a combination of feasting football and first to the malls because people are already thinking about.
In fact, somebody told me they were part of my vacation is going to be shopping.
I said shopping, shopping for Christmas. So you know, whatever happened to Thanksgiving, I’ll tell you what happens Thanksgiving.
When you don’t have it in your heart, you don’t practice it. And that’s where we are.
The most wonderful blessed nation in the earth. And we are far more interested in goal than we are God.
I can tell you it not only is showing that the consequences, it will show greater consequences unless we turn around.
And usually tragically enough. What turns us around is troubles, trials, heartache, torment you name it.
But on the other hand, there’s a whole bunch of us still love God and will be grateful at Thanksgiving and recognize what Thanksgiving is all about.
Well, I want you to turn in just a moment to Colossians and Paul talks about overflowing with gratitude.
So if you turn to that second chapter for a moment, and I want us to read just a few verses.
He’s been talking about our relationship to Christ and all that, that means.
So he says, beginning in verse six.
And whenever the Bible says, therefore, that means on the basis of what I just got through saying, therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in him and established in your faith just as you were instructed and overflowing with Thanksgiving.
So Paul is reminding the Christians and there at Colossi of who they are and why they’re where they are and the fact that on the basis of that they should be overflowing with Thanksgiving.
So as you think about your own heart at this particular time, would you say that you’re a grateful person.
Would you say that you really and truly are a grateful person that you acknowledge?
That God is the source of everything that you do.
You acknowledge the fact that every blessing that comes your way according to the scripture comes from Him?
And the truth is a person who is really Godly is grateful. Many Christians that grumble us.
They’re not Godly in their attitude and they do not show gratitude.
And so what I’d like to do is look to see what Paul said about who we are in Christ and why you and I should be very grateful for all that God does for us.
And it’s very evident in this passage.
So when we look at this passage, I want us to read it again because I want you to get this thought in your mind.
Listen. He says, therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus, your savior and your Lord, on the basis of that, he says, here is what is going on in your life and here’s what, here’s what you can expect.
And so it’s pretty evident from God’s word that He wants us to have a grateful heart.
So, in thinking about all that and thinking about what is the key to us, having an overflowing sense of gratitude toward God.
Now, I’m going to explain what that gratitude is all about in the moment that I want to give you a little test at the end that you decide on the basis of what a grateful person is like, whether you would fall in that category or not.
So what is the key to that? So I want you to notice these words.
He says therefore, as you have received Christ, Jesus the Lord. So walk in him.
Now he said, look, this is once you trust the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior, we’re talking about why we should be grateful.
Now, watch this when you trust in Jesus Christ as your savior, he didn’t save you on the basis of anything you did.
You received Christ as your savior. And besides that, remember the Bible says in Ephesians chapter one, watch this.
He chose you. He chose you before the foundation of the world.
There’s not a single one of us who can boast of why we got saved.
Somebody says, well, the Bible says, you have to have faith and I had enough faith to be saved.
But you have to remember this.
The scripture also says by grace, are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves?
It’s not not the salvation of yourself. Your faith is not of yourself. It is a gift of God.
God has given every single believer, listen, the gift of faith.
So he says here, for example, that we come to him have received Jesus Christ, the Lord and therefore were to walk in him.
And so our relationship, listen, that’s a relationship that has been sealed the moment you trusted Him as your savior that sealed you as a child of God, that in itself ought to create enough gratitude to last us for a lifetime.
But not only that he says, now, having been now having trusted him as my savior, he says, now you can walk in him.
That is you can walk in this relationship.
You can have the kind of personal, intimate relationship with Jesus Christ that, that changes your life and keeps on changing and keeps on working in your life.
And this is what a person who is grateful is all about.
Therefore, as you received Christ, Jesus walk in him, having been firmly rooted, built up in Him, establishing your faith just as you were instructed and overflowing with gratitude.
That is a person who overflows with gratitude.
There’s some things that are very, very evident in their life because listen, a person who does not understand the word of God and a person who’s sort of a nominal Christian.
They may say, well, I’m thankful, thankful for what well, thankful to be alive and they list a few of those kind of things.
But what I want you to see here is what he’s saying.
And that’s simply this, there is, there is a degree to which you and I should be grateful to God.
That oftentimes we just sort of overlook.
So let’s take just a moment to think about some things you ought to be grateful for.
If I should ask you, tell me what you’re grateful for.
More than likely most people would start out with their good health or their family and so forth.
And so we’re going to get past all that and let’s think about watch this.
Now, what you, what you should be grateful for, watch this carefully listening to say, amen that you have, that you had nothing to do with, except that you accepted it.
So number one, you were chosen before the foundation of the world.
Have you ever thought about thanking God for that? You had nothing to do with that?
Then also you were in dwelt by the Holy Spirit. What’s so important about that?
Because He’s the one who will enable you and give you guidance and direction in your life and the power to do what God called you to do.
You are eternally secure. Once you trusted Jesus Christ as your savior, nobody can erase that.
Nobody can erase your name from the lamb’s book of Life in heaven, you’re eternally secure.
Then you have the gifts of the Spirit when the Holy Spirit came into your life.
What did he do? Watch this? Knowing you perfectly, knowing the perfect will of God for your life.
He gifted you God gifted you enabled you, makes you ready to be able to do and to do well, whatever God called you to do, that’s what He does.
That’s not something we do. That’s what He does. Likewise.
You have the privilege of having an intimate relationship with God.
Do you understand what that means to have an intimate relationship with Him?
That you can talk to Him and listen to Him and pray to Him that God can work in your life and all the things that are involved in a personal intimate relationship, satisfying every need and every desire of your heart.
That’s something He did. likewise. He’s giving you peace.
Show me somebody who’s not a Christian, I’ll show you somebody who doesn’t have peace.
I don’t care how much money they have.
Show me a lot of Christians out of the will of God. They don’t have peace either.
But we have the, we have the privilege of having not only peace with God but the peace of God in our heart.
You know what the, you know, when the final test of that is when the person comes to face death and know that any moment it could be all over, then there’s no jockeying around about.
Well, I sort of believe no, you either have peace or you don’t.
You either have assurance that you what the Bible says, absent from the body or president of the Lord or you don’t have it.
There’s no fooling around about it. It’s crystal clear and very sharp. Then there’s the unconditional love of God.
Think about this, every single moment of your life. God loves you unconditionally. He doesn’t love you.
If and but when, where none of that he just loves you.
You said does he love me when I’m sending? Yes he does. Why doesn’t he stop me?
He’s given you the privilege to be wise enough not to sin against him and to walk in obedience him.
But he loves you just the same.
You say, well, if he loves me, why does he create such pain when I disobeyed him?
Because He loves you? If he didn’t listen, if he didn’t send you enough discipline, you just keep on living in sin.
All that is an expression of his love for us. Then of course his moment by moment presence.
Think about this. When you got up this morning, if you live alone, you weren’t alone.
You woke up in the presence of Jesus Christ. You got in your car. He was riding with you.
You got the church. You said between two people you didn’t know. But he was there.
In other words, the very presence of God is a gift from God for every single one of us.
And I wonder when’s the last time you ever said, Lord, I just want to thank you.
I just want to thank you that I’m living in your, in your presence.
And I want, I want to thank you God for your provision for me.
He has promised to meet every single one of our needs.
We can’t promise that to anybody, but he’s promised that and think about His, his promise of our protection.
None of us know till we get to heaven.
And I’m not sure that God loves us. Show us a lot of those things we say.
Now when I get to heaven, I’m gonna ask this.
Well, I don’t know, that’s gonna make any difference at all about what happened down here. We get to heaven.
None of us will ever know how many times God protected us from an accident or from some ill, whatever it might be.
We’ll never know how many times he protected us until we get to heaven or we may never know.
But the fact that He does all the time in our life, then think about this, you have the promise of a bodily resurrection.
You have the promise of having a body.
When you get to heaven, you have the promise of knowing each other in heaven. Where’d that come from?
That came from God? Not anything that you and I could possibly do that could create that.
And then think about this, I don’t know where you live.
If I should say how many of you would like to live in a little better house.
A little bit of home that you live in. Probably most of you say.
Well, if I had a choice, I’d, yeah, I’d take you up on that. Didn’t cost me anything.
Well, do you know the one that God has prepared for? You?
Listen, I don’t know all the details, but I know this, everything about God is fantastic.
Everything about Him is perfect. He doesn’t do anything halfway. He doesn’t leave anything unscrewed, a nailed.
He says I’m going to prepare a place for you.
And if I go to prepare a place for you, I’m coming and he has, I’m coming again to receive you to myself that where I am there you may be also.
And then the last thing I wanna mention is not any of those, of all the physical things that I could put my hand on.
The thing that you now to be most grateful for is the word of God.
Here’s how we know who He is thinking about how blessed you are.
Listen, suppose it was in some of the language that we didn’t understand.
Now, That’s about 13 things that I’ve mentioned. We ought to be grateful for that.
You don’t have anything to do with accept, accepted. So how can we be grumblers?
How, how can we not be overflowing with gratitude?
Thinking that God has done all of that for us and every single believer has the privilege of enjoying that or not.
And I think one of the good tests of a person’s real relationship to God is whether they’re grateful or not.
It isn’t just a little thanks, it’s gratitude, it’s overflowing that is we are so grateful about what God has done in our life and what He’s doing.
We can’t keep it to ourselves. That’s why I can’t imagine anybody not being willing to share their faith.
Look what you’ve got to tell, think about what you’ve got to tell.
You have the most awesome knowledge and the most awesome message the world has ever heard and we’ll ever hear.
You want to be excited about telling it. You’ve got it. It’s inside of you. We have this awesome message.
We have this awesome possession of what we’ve just discovered here.
So, what I wanna do is I just want to give you a little friendly test and if you are watching or listening, I’ll give you a second or two there to go find you a piece of paper and a pen or pencil.
And I want to give you a little test that let’s see if you would fall into the category of a person who is grateful.
What kind of a Christian are we? That is, is my life overflowing with anything?
Oh This is my life. Look like a sandy bottom or my over flowing like a river, overflowing.
What I’m gonna show you what it is in just a moment.
Once you take a test now, you don’t have to do it. You’ll be the loser if you don’t.
And as I say, um or maybe you’re afraid, maybe you’re afraid to find out.
So and what you might do, you may want to write these down and then you may want to put a check down by it if you if you think that sounds like you are a little cross mark but we have to be honest now you can’t look on somebody else’s you ready?
Alright. Number one, if you have a grateful heart, you’re gonna have a positive attitude.
You can’t help but have a positive attitude if you have a grateful heart, look what God is doing in your life.
Secondly, you’re gonna be aware of God’s presence.
If you have a grateful, if you have a grateful spirit, you have to be aware of God’s presence because you know that He’s the one who is at work in your life, creating the things around you that you’re enjoying and maybe difficulty, hardship pain.
But you’re still aware that God is there helping you through it. A third one is a humble spirit.
Mhm A person has a grateful heart.
It’s a person with a humble spirit for the simple reason you recognize that it’s all of God, none of you that He is the source of every good thing that comes your way.
And so there’s a humble spirit, then there’s gonna be a sense of Peacefulness about you.
A person who is, who is overflowing with gratitude is peaceful. Why?
Because they placed their trust in Him, they’re watching him work in their life.
They’re so blessed in so many ways and they’re aware of it.
You see, there are many people who are very, very blessed not even aware of it and therefore they’re not grateful.
And then of course, a person who has a grateful spirit is thoughtful of others.
If you are a person who has a grateful heart, you’re going to be thoughtful of others.
What can I do for Him? What can I do for her?
I wonder how I can help that person or help this person, then you’re gonna be generous because you recognize what God is doing for you.
Your gratitude toward God is gonna make you a generous person and you’ll listen, what you’ll do is you’ll, you’ll look for ways to help somebody else.
You look for ways to show your gratitude.
And what I discovered a long time ago is if I’m grateful for God doing something in my life, then I’m just, I’m just automatically motivated to want to do something for somebody else.
And I think oftentimes we, we collect stuff when what we ought to be doing is thanking God for what we have and passing it on.
And as we pass it on, here’s what happens. I guarantee you.
I’ve lived long enough to know this is the way it works.
When you, when you give away what you have got already has it stacked up over.
It’s gonna give you something to take the place and you can take any facet of your life, whether it’s money, whether it’s clothes, whatever you give away.
God is going to give you something in return, that’s the generosity of God.
And therefore He wants us likewise to be generous and we’re gonna be unselfish, we’re gonna be willing to share whatever we have.
In fact, we will do so joyfully because a person of gratitude, it’s just in you, it’s just flowing.
That is, you don’t have to wonder about that. That person is going to be expressive.
For example, if a person has a sense of gratitude, you know what they gotta tell it, they got to talk about it.
If they’re not bragging, what they’re doing is saying here’s what God is doing in my life, or they may be saying, let me tell you what God will do in your life.
If you will trust Him, if you will rely upon Him, if you really believe in your heart, that He is who he says he is and that He provides all of our needs, meets those needs, whatever they may be, you’re gonna be unselfish because what happens, God’s already showing His blessing towards you.
And we started out by saying a positive attitude and awareness of God’s presence oftentimes it’s our negative attitude and we are so wrapped up in ourselves.
We don’t even recognize what God is doing.
A person of gratitude is going to be a person who is expressive and you’re gonna be friendly.
Now, I don’t think many of us probably like to meet grumpy people because there’s nothing very pleasant about him.
This is wrong. That’s wrong. He did this, she did that. They’re on and on and on and on.
They go and the truth is if a person is really a person of gratitude, they’re going to be a friend of why?
Because you see their heart is melted.
It doesn’t take much, it doesn’t take much to move the heart of a grateful person.
That’s just who they are.
Then of course, there’s this whole idea of being contagious.
Now, all of us have met people that we, when we see them, we smile. Amen.
Let me ask you this. Don’t you don’t, you have some people in your life?
You don’t have to see them. You just think about them and smile. You know what?
There’s something about them that’s contagious and when you see them, you know, they don’t, you don’t stand up and wait for them.
You’re out there, wait, shaking hand. How you doing? Glad to see you. There’s something about it. What is it?
Well, ultimately, it’s Jesus within them. If I said, well, what is it about him or her? You like?
You may not be able to express it at first.
But I’ll tell you what is your heart connects to their heart?
Because to grateful people, there’s some, there’s a connection, that friendliness, that openness, that genuineness, that honesty free.
What is it? Because a gracious person is rooted and grounded in Jesus Christ and the love of Christ is a love within them, the forgiveness of Christ’s forgiveness in them.
The understanding of Christ is understanding in that person.
And then of course, they’re going to be motivated, listen, a personal gratitude is motivated, motivated to give, motivated to share, motivated to serve, motivated you name it.
They’re motivated. Likewise, they’re gonna have a servant spirit.
They’re gonna have a servant spirit because they want to be used.
They want to give it themselves, they want to do what God wants them to do.
And therefore they’re going to have a high level of faith, a person with a spirit of gratitude.
They’re going to have a high level of faith. Why?
Because they’re watching God work in their life over and over and over again.
They see what He’s doing and therefore it’s just a part of the way they think.
And then of course, we would say they’re going to be fruitful, a person who has a grateful heart wants to give themselves away.
They want to be involved, they, they want God to use them.
They don’t want to sit around always looking for something for themselves.
And I would say for you just one last word.
And that is there gonna be joyful, a person of the heart of gratitude. You know what?
Everything could be wrong in their life and somehow deep down inside, there’s that joy, not necessarily happiness but joy, joy is that indescribable feeling and attitude and spirit within.
Listen, no matter what’s going on. There’s this positive outflow and that outflow and overflow of gratitude.
God is doing something in their life now without looking at anybody else’s can’t look at anybody else’s, look at your sheep and see how well you did.
Did you check off the things that you thought would be true of you putting across marks by them?
Or were you scared to death to do it?
And what you have to decide is this, am I really grateful for what God has done for me?
Am I really grateful for what he’s doing in me? And I really grateful for the wonderful privileges and opportunities.
Am I grateful for what he gives? Am I grateful for all those things we’ve talked about?
And if you’re not, there’s only one person who can change that you can decide today, Lord, I want to be a believer, a follower of Jesus who is overflowing with gratitude and when you come down your list and you’ve got an X on it, so I’m gonna work on that and this and this and this because God, that’s who I wanna be.
You know, what will happen, gonna open doors in your relationships that he’s not open before because God is going to use your spirit to reach that other person.
And it may be people listen, it may be that in your life, it’s people who are hurting and somehow He will begin to work in your life in other people’s lives that you would never imagine and watch this.
You know what it won’t be, it won’t be any effort. You only have to take an effort. Why?
Because it’s the flow, it’s the flow of God in your life.
And this whole issue is about the flow of God and his love and goodness and mercy and kindness and generosity and all that.
It’s flowing through you. It’s a choice you make. You may say, well, I’m not even a Christian.
Does it work for me?
No, because you see, we started out by saying, being in Christ established in Him, rooted in Him, built up in Him.
It’s all about your relationship to Him when He comes into your life.
And you want to confess your sin and repent of your sin and surrender your life to Jesus Christ as the final atoning sacrifice at Calvary that God sent prophecy did way back when in fact, all the way to the garden, when Adam and Eve sinned, remember the Bible says, they found Him some fig leaves to cover them.
God covered them with skins that meant that God had to kill something and shed blood.
First hint of the sacrificial atoning death of his son, Jesus went to the cross for you.
How could you not surrender your life to him and listen your whole eternal destiny, you’re going to die.
You know you will. The Bible says it’s appointed on the man wants to die and after this, the judgment, you’re going to die and you go in some way.
So I just think you disappear. You may think it, but you’re gonna realize too late that you didn’t disappear.
It’s a choice you make to receive Christ as your savior and watch him work everything we’ve talked about in your life.
You can’t beat that. Listen, there’s no one who can promise you that.
But Christ and I plead with you in his name, Jesus to surrender your life to him.
Let him change your life. You know what? You’ll be overflowing with gratitude for all eternity.
Wow.