BE YE THANKFUL TO GOD.

SERIES: THROUGH THE BOOK OF COLOSSIANS.

TEXT: COLOSSIANS 3:15

Thankfulness is a great attitude in life that can transform one’s life into a new direction in life. Thankfulness strengthens relationships, it creates resilience and even happiness.

By focusing on what you have rather than what you lack you can improve mood, reduce negative emotions like envy and stress and even enhance physical health.

People who are thankful are happier and are more satisfied in life. People who are thankful go further in life. Socially, being thankful improves relationships by creating a positive environment of mutual support and fostering a stronger sense of connection.

A grateful outlook helps people cope more effectively with adversity and stress making them mentally stronger and more resilient.

Being thankful is an attitude that is self-rewarding -it improves self-esteem. Focusing on the good in life reduces negative social comparisons.

In some cultures they have a thanksgiving day, but it is possible to complain all the remaining 364 days of the year.

The greatest theologian of the New Testament, Paul was a truly thankful person. He always started his letters by the words, “We always thank God, the father of our Lord Jesus.”

The opposite of thankfulness is being thankless. Being thankless and complaining, it causes bad attitude and people of bad attitude are people who are difficult to deal with. These people are pessimists; may the Lord deliver each one of us from such companions!!

If a thankful and thankless person were to describe a glass that is half full of water, this is the way they would describe it:-

Thankful person: “The glass is half full of water.”
Thankless person: “The glass is half empty.”

More about being thankful:

IMPORTANCE OF THANKSGIVING.

God wants us to be thankful-1^st 5:18.

The Lord wants to be thanked for His providence, sovereignty and the privileges and the privileges He has given us.
The Holy Spirit wants to be thanked for His companionship through this heavenly journey.
The Savior expects to be thanked for the great sacrifice He made to make us what we are today, things of which the saints of the Old Testament looked for-1^st Peter 10-11.

Everything is from God.

There is not a single thing you own, nor a single thing about who you are, that has not been given to you; from the tiniest detail to the great salvation that we now enjoy.
Your very life, freedom, health are from God. You can appreciate God better if you visit the graveyard, visit the hospital wards to see the sick or visit the prisons to see those without freedom.

Lack of thanksgiving stagnates your life.

After God delivered Israel from slavery and hardship, they spent their time in the desert, complaining!!
As a result most of them spent their lives in the desert and even never entered the Promised Land-Exodus 16:12.
Entitlement holds you back, thankfulness propels you forward into that God desired for you.

THANKFULNESS PROVOKES GOD TO DO MORE FOR YOU-Luke 17:11-9.

Ten lepers had leprosy. They suffered physically, mentally and socially.
They lifted up their voices saying, “Jesus, Master have mercy on us.”
The Lord answered their call because leprosy came from sin. Jesus could have ignored them and walked away.
Jesus chose to attend to their call. He intervened on their misery.
The Lord told them, “Go and show yourselves to the priest.” As they went they were healed. Your healing is in your obedience to the voice of God.
Only one out of ten (10%) returned and gave thanks to the Lord. Many a time it is only a very small percentage of believers who are truly thankful.
The leper’s gratitude gave him something that the other nine didn’t get; he was made whole; his body parts that had been cut off by leprosy, were restored back.
A lot of people have “leprosy” in different areas of their lives. The way to healing and full restoration is-
Obedience to the Lord-John 14:15.
Thankfulness to the Lord.