Sermon Central
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A Thankful Life
Contributed by Cesar Datuin on Mar 5, 2015 (message contributor)
Summary: Another year has passed and it's time to be thankful for all the blessings we had the whole year. It is perfect time to understand an attitude of thankfulness within us. This message tries to know a deeper meaning of each attitude.
A Thankful Life
“Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.”
Intro:
It’s another year has passed and there are a lot of things that we need to thank. We may think of other people who blessed us or even opportunities that gave us blessings. But all these things are only an instrument of God in blessing us.
Today, it’s time for us to reminisce what happened over the last 12months of 2014 and as a good start for 2015, why don’t we thank God for all our countless blessings. I think a good way of saying our thanks to God is by having a good and right attitude towards the word.
I came up with an acronym for the word THANKS and hopefully you may find it useful whenever we say thanks to people and especially to God.
Thank God with…
T-ruthfulness
“But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth.”
Thank God for those people who blessed us in any way.
For a few second, bow our head and blessed them.
H-umility – the story of the 10 lepers in Luke 17:11-19
“15 One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. 16 He threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him--and he was a Samaritan.”
It is an absolute act of being thankful - when we learn to humble ourselves always before God.
We cannot separate humble heart to a thankful heart.
A-ppreciation
“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.”
Illustration: The song “Counting your Blessing” – Christmas song by Jose mari Chan
When I'm worried and I can't sleep
I count my blessings instead of sheep
And I fall asleep counting my blessings
When my bankroll is getting small
I think of when I had none at all
And I fall asleep counting my blessings
N-ew Heart
15 All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. 16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
Keeping a winning attitude even when you are losing is a tall order, to be sure. Nonetheless, that’s exactly what God expects of each one of us. In the personal things of this life, God wants to remind us daily that we should always be prepared to come face to face with defeat, loss and disappointment. We need to condition our hearts to persevere, to endure when our happiness is invaded from time to time by sorrows; to treat defeat as nothing more than a stepping stone to an eventual victory.
The key to not “losing heart” is making sure that we understand and believe that even in defeat we are renewed in Christ. Defeats come and go in this life and that will never change. Yet, for the Christian, defeat is one of those things that we strive to manage in the sweet expectation that even in defeat we are victorious in Christ. Christians are always on the rebound. When one foot is mired in defeat, the other is already moving on; looking for that “winning streak of one!”
K-indness
“I will tell of the kindnesses of the LORD, the deeds for which he is to be praised, according to all the LORD has done for us-- yes, the many good things he has done for the house of Israel, according to his compassion and many kindnesses.”
One of God’s faithful missionaries, Allen Gardiner, experienced many physical difficulties and hardships throughout his service to the Savior. Despite his troubles, he said, "While God gives me strength, failure will not daunt me." In 1851, at the age of 57, he died of disease and starvation while serving on Picton Island at the southern tip of South America. When his body was found, his diary lay nearby. It bore the record of hunger, thirst, wounds, and loneliness. The last entry in his little book showed the struggle of his shaking hand as he tried to write legibly. It read, "I am overwhelmed with a sense of the goodness of God."
Allen Gardiner.
S-upplication
Philippians 4:19 KJV
“But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”
Conclusion
