The Attitude of Gratitude

Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Ephesians 5:20

Let me ask you a question. Do you have difficulty with bitterness, selfishness, self‑pity, negativism, or pride? An attitude of gratitude can change those things and literally transform your life. There are four levels of living. People in the lowest level constantly complain. These folks are always griping and complaining. Rather than being humbly grateful, they’re grumbly hateful. The second level is just a tad higher. These are not people who are constantly complaining; they just never give thanks for anything. They take things for granted.

I watched an interesting television series couple of days back and in one of the episodes of the series one of the bad guys got shot and ended up in the hospital. While there he developed sepsis which could not be cured and obviously the person was going to die. Watching this show (Blue Bloods), was like receiving a bucket of cold water on my head. From no where, a miracle happened and he was cured of his sickness. He deserves to die, but all along God’s saw that He could turn things around for good in his life.

This is the same with you and I. Our lives are full of mistakes, shortcoming, weakness, failures, disappointment and a whole lot of things. Our Father in heaven desires us to live a life worthy of His calling, but we don't. His mercy always keeps us, His grace always heals us, His strength is always made perfect in our weakness. Like that bad guy in the movie, we deserve judgement and death, but God is turning these thing in our lives for His Glory. You and I have every reason to be thankful as long as we have breath.

The point of the simple (and surprisingly short) blog is that thanksgiving is not reserved for one day a year or only after an event or situation that was resolved. Thankfulness and gratitude are to be a daily part of our lives, no matter what is going on around or to us. We can remain thankful even when the walls around us are falling down or the floods are lapping at our door. We can remain thankful even when the bank account is empty and our bodies cry out in pain or our minds cry out in fear or anguish.

You’re not just simply to be thankful one day a year. One day is not long enough to thank God for all that He’s given you. His blessings come daily. Psalm 68:19 says, “Blessed be the Lord, Who daily loadeth us with benefits…” Every day God has brand-new blessings for you, and every day ought to find you thanking God. Every prayer that you pray ought to be salted with thanks.

Thankfulness is to be a way of life and not a onetime action. When we live with the attitude of gratitude, we are transformed into a humble and meek child of God who cherishes each new day as a gift from Him. Never underestimate the importance of thanking God with each breath we take for the honor of being loved by God, loved by family and friends and to love others.

Source:worshippersgh.com