Perpetual Gratitude

Philippians 4:12-13 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

I spoke with several people this week struggling with very different circumstances, but all needing to learn a very simple and yet powerful way of life. It is a way of life that I have by no means mastered and require the constant encouragement of Scripture to even be reminded of its existence. This glorious way of life that allows a person to live with peace and joy is the life of perpetual gratitude.

When a person is grateful, their mindset, emotions, and spirit experience a lift. Those that are grateful see life differently. They feel better. They smile more. They worry less. They love with greater zeal. They dream bigger dreams. They stand a little taller. They give more because they need less. They find fault less often and encourage more. They make the world a better place by seeing the good that is and the good that can be.

Why is that? How does gratitude do all of that?

1. It enables a person to perceive what is good. Many times are minds are drawn to the negative. We see what we don't have rather than what do have. We hear the criticism and not the compliment. We feel the pain and ignore the victory of accomplishment. Gratitude provides a powerfully positive perspective.

2. It enables a person to appreciate the positive. When we are grateful, we recognize that things could be worse and choose to be thankful for the good that is. I was able to pick up my two year old this morning and carry him to bed. Sure it was 5:30 am, but still... I have a healthy 2 year old son. I have the strength to lift him. I have legs that can carry me and him. I have a home to hold him in. I am blessed.

3. It honors the gifts of others. Everything that is good comes from God. (James 1:17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.) When we are grateful, we are acknowledging God's mercy and grace. Mercy is not getting what we deserve. Grace is getting what we don't deserve. In His mercy God does not give us what our actions deserve. I deserve far more pain and hurtful consequence for my sin. We all do. Not only does God not give us what we deserve; God actually gives us what we don't deserve. God has given me eternal life in Christ, a wife that loves me, children that are healthy, a home for us to live in, a church to serve and do life with, and friends to carry burdens with. And that does not even take into account the air I breathe, the lungs that breathe the air, the heart that beats without me telling it to, and the mind that is capable of perceiving it all but doesn't have to because God has made it possible for us to dream and hope and believe.

The list could go on and on. Suffice it to say, anyone and everyone has the ability to be grateful for something. We deserve nothing, but we have all been given something. Those that can appreciate God's gifts consistently live well.

How grateful are you? Your contentment level will tell you.

No Limit to Grace for Sin or Consequence of Sin

It is presumptuous to assume that God removes every consequence the moment you repent of your sin. Do not think that the instant you show remorse God will restore everything as it was. He may not. Some sins, such as adultery, come from a flawed character. God forgives sin immediately upon repentance, but it takes longer to build character. It is character, not forgiveness, that determines what God brings next to your life. - Henry Blackaby

This is one of those things that I find people in Christ get confused about. There is always forgiveness in Christ. God forgives. (Psalm 103:12 as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.) God's redeemed people forgive (Matthew 18:21-34).

But forgiveness does not always remove natural and practical consequences. When we sin, we show a lack of faith and trust in God. God will discipline us to learn to love and trust him. (Hebrews 12:5-6 And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, 6because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.”) The discipline is at times a consequence. When someone sins, that person also shows a lack of restraint, character, honesty, commitment, and honor. Those characteristics make it hard for other people to trust that person. Common sense tells people that the person who sinned has flaws that need to be transformed by the Spirit before that person can be trusted with the hearts and lives of others.

The bottom line is that the sin that impacts other people's lives will have consequences. When your actions dishonor God there will be consequences. (2 Samuel 12:10 Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.)

People that are dishonest and hurtful to others, will be forgiven, but the consequences to those actions may remain. They may lose a place of influence in others' lives. They may lose a position or a personal relationship. Sin has a price. Thankfully, Jesus has paid that price to give us a permanent position in God's family and to give us a permanent relationship with God Himself. The consequence of sin may impact other relationships and the circumstances of life.

If you have sinned, repent and accept responsibility for your actions by respecting the consequences and the need for you to show the fruit of your repentance.

What the Church Needs Now - what she's always needed

"Anybody coming under the lordship of Christ automatically has a God-given DNA to be on mission with their Lord to touch a lost world," Blackaby said. "It's not a matter of trying to get our churches back on the program of the Great Commission, but rather into the relationship with the living Lord who is on mission in our world."

The entire article this quote came from is on the Blackaby site. Click here to go there. Go to the bottom of the page.

Another thought on this...

I have been thinking about what Blackaby said in this article and I see in Scripture what he is saying. Look at what Jesus said, “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” (Matthew 4:19)

Look at what Jesus invites us to do. Look at what Jesus does, when we respond in faith. Look at what we become.

Jesus invites us to come follow Him. We can lay down our old life and surrender to Jesus. In His grace He pardons us by paying our sin debt and bringing us into a right relationship with Himself. We become His friends, His brothers, His disciples, His great love. This relationship changes us.

So when we come to faith in Christ and seek to live in relationship with Jesus, that relationship changes us. We get remade. Jesus said “and I will make you". It is the presence of Jesus in our lives that transforms us. It is not a program. It is not will power. By talking with Jesus, living under the authority of Jesus, learning more about Jesus, and mimicking Jesus in our personal relationships we are changed. We are remade.

We are made into something different. We are no longer fishers of personal power, pleasure, popularity, or possessions. Being with Jesus makes us like Jesus, which makes us other focused. We seek to do what serves others and God most. We do not work to catch some comfort. We look to our leader and seek to serve the needs of others, as He has served and is serving us and those we are seeking to serve. We becomes fishers of men. We seek others out so we can show them the love of our Lord and introduce them to Him so they can be with Him, be like Him, and be on mission for Him to give love, healing, and hope to the world.

That makes a lot of sense to me. We need to focus on our relationship with Jesus. Being with Jesus will change us. When Jesus is in the process of changing us, He will work through us to change the world.

Hebrews 12:1-8 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. 4In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, 6because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.” 7Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? 8If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons.

Leadership / Life Lesson

This really spoke to me this morning. It is so easy as a parent, leader, and person of influence to focus on what others are doing rather than on what God is doing. I can see in my own life that I have developed a sinful self-righteous frustrated attitude when I focused on what people were doing rather than focusing on who God is and what He is doing.

Here is what Blackaby said in his devotion today:

And Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock; and he said to them, "Hear now, you rebels! Must we bring water for you out of this rock?" (Numbers 20:10)

It is easy to see why Moses became frustrated with the Hebrew people. They were so hard-hearted and weak in their faith that Moses lost his patience and became angry with them. Yet every time Moses shifted his focus away from God, it cost him. When he sought to help his people by taking matters into his own hands, he spent the next forty years herding sheep in the wilderness_(Exod. 2:11–15). This time his impetuous behavior cost him the opportunity to enter the Promised Land (Num. 20:12). In his frustration at the peoples’ irreverence, Moses committed the very same sin, blatantly disobeying God’s instructions. How did this happen? Moses allowed his attention to shift to the behavior of others rather than focusing on the activity of God.

This could happen to you as well. God has put people around you who need your ministry to them. You will never be able to properly help them, however, unless your primary focus is on God. If you concentrate on people, their weaknesses, their disobedience, their lack of faith, and their stubbornness will quickly frustrate you. You may, like Moses, commit the very sins you are condemning. If, however, your eyes are fixed on holy God, you will become more like Him—gracious, forgiving, long-suffering, and righteous. When a friend’s behavior disappoints you, go immediately to the Lord. Seek to discern what God is wanting to do in your friend’s life rather than concentrating on your friend’s sin. Then you will have the strength, wisdom, and patience you need to help your friend in the way God desires.

This also makes me think of the encouragement the Hebrew writer gave to his Jewish congregation.

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. 4In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, 6because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.” 7Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? (Hebrews 12:2-7)

Providentially, D.A. Carson's devotion was on the same text. Here are some of his insights.

God does not say, “Because you did not obey me enough …” but “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy.… ” There was, of course, formal disobedience: God said to speak, and Moses struck the rock. But God perceives that the problem is deeper yet. The people have worn Moses down, and Moses responds in kind. His response is not only the striking of the rock, it is the answer of a man who under pressure has become bitter and pretentious (which is certainly not to say that any of us would have done any better!). What has evaporated is transparent trust in God: God is not being honored as holy.
D. A. Carson, For the Love of God: Volume 1 (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1998), May 11.

Still Scared?

Last Sunday I spoke on fear and what God intends us to fear and what He does not want us to fear. You can listen to it "Built to Be Fearless and Fearful" by clicking here. We learned that in fearing God that we need not fear anything else.

In conversation with a number of people on Sunday and this week, I have realized that a lot of us have fears about our way of life. In listening to others and thinking about my own life, I have realized that this economic downturn has caused many of us to rethink our lives and to redefine what we want vs. what we need.

Many of us are living in fear of losing what we want. With God as our God, we never have to fear losing what we need. God always provides what we need. Even when life, a possession, a relationship, and/or health is lost God is still God and gives us what we need. God gives us each day "our daily bread."

We must learn to understand what "our bread" (our needs) are. And we also must understand that God gives daily. He gives us what we need each day. Most of us want him to give us what we need for life now, but that's not how God works. He doesn't always give us what we want and He doesn't give us all we will ever need in life today. He gives us each day what we need.

Watch this video by clicking here to see if it resonates with you the way it did with me.

Economy, Flu, Politics - Afraid?

People are afraid. The news is doing a great job stirring it up. Tomorrow I am going to talk about what we should never fear and what we should always fear. I believe it will give a lot of hope.

Here is something to get you through today.

What you do reveals what you believe. If you are living a fearful, anxiety-filled life, you are proving your lack of confidence in God’s protection, regardless of what you may say. Live your life with confidence that Jesus is continually interceding with the Father on your behalf. If you trust Him completely, you will have nothing to fear. -Henry Blackaby


Life can often be a restless, disrupted existence until we give ourselves wholeheartedly to something beyond ourselves and follow and obey it supremely. Such implicit trust in God’s great love and wisdom with a sincere desire to follow His leading should be every Christian’s goal. Our willingness to trust and obey is always the first step toward God’s blessing in our lives.

In 1886 Daniel B. Towner, director of the music department at Moody Bible Institute, was leading the music for evangelist D. L. Moody’s series of meetings in Brockton, Massachusetts. A young man rose to give a testimony, saying, “I am not quite sure—but I am going to trust, and I am going to obey.” Mr. Towner jotted down this statement and sent it to the Rev. J. H. Sammis, a Presbyterian minister and later a teacher at Moody, who wrote the present five stanzas.

Salvation is God’s responsibility. Our responsibility is to trust in that salvation and then to obey its truths. “Trust and Obey” presents a balanced view of a believer’s trust in Christ’s redemptive work, and it speaks of the resulting desire to obey Him and do His will in our daily lives. Then, and only then, do we experience real peace and joy.

When we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word, what a glory He sheds on our way! While we do His good will He abides with us still, and with all who will trust and obey.

Not a shadow can rise, not a cloud in the skies, but His smile quickly drives it away; not a doubt nor a fear, not a sigh nor a tear, can abide while we trust and obey.

Not a burden we bear, not a sorrow we share, but our toil He doth richly repay; not a grief nor a loss, not a frown nor a cross, but is blest if we trust and obey.
But we never can prove the delights of His love until all on the altar we lay, for the favor He shows and the joy He bestows are for them who will trust and obey.
Then in fellowship sweet we will sit at His feet, or we’ll walk by His side in the way; what He says we will do, where He sends we will go—Never fear, only trust and obey.

Chorus: Trust and obey—for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus—but to trust and obey.

For Today: Psalm 37:3-5; John 8:31; John 14:23; James 2:14–26; 1 John 2:6
(Kenneth W. Osbeck, Amazing Grace : 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel Publications, 1990, 88.)