I love the month of November for several reasons, namely because Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love November, too, because of the ways our beloved community goes through seasonal change. Have you ever noticed the beautiful canopy of trees losing their leaves as you drive through Bethania in November? It's one of my most favorite things about living in this area. November is also the last month of the Christian calendar, leading us to celebrate "Christ the King" Sunday (the Sunday before Advent begins). I can't think of a better subject to preach than King Jesus, can you? For these reasons and more, I love November. But the greatest spiritual reason for loving November is that it is a month that re-centers our minds and hearts on the practice of gratitude. It's one thing to sing the hymn, "Count Your Blessings" but it can be more difficult to name our blessings, one by one, to the Lord in prayer. Gratitude is not something that we easily do, and yet, it's an attitude that must be cultivated, grown and maintained during a Christian's life ministry.
As Christ-followers, the first and most important component of our character must be a grateful heart. There are no exceptions to this rule. The root of the word "gratitude" is where the word "grace" or "gift" is derived. How wonderful it is to know that gratitude is simply a thankful response to God's grace. After all, there would be no giving of thanks without the gift of God's love in the first place! Because God initiated a relationship with us through His Son, Jesus Christ, we are the recipients of God's grace and are called to respond to him in a like manner. This means that our words, our actions and our faith must be bathed in gratitude. For every morning we wake up, let us be thankful! For every bite of food we eat, may we be thankful! For the clothes on our backs, the cars we drive, the bills that get paid and the air we breathe, may we be truly grateful.
But most of all, the gift of Jesus Christ must compel us to wake up every morning and praise the name of the Lord, to honor our Redeemer and glorify the Savior of the world. No matter what our circumstances, we've been reminded by the apostle Paul to be grateful: "Be joyful always, pray continually and give thanks under all circumstances for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus" (1Thess. 5:16-18, NIV). Notice that Paul says we are to give thanks under all circumstances. This means that thanksgiving is not only relegated to moments of comfort, quiet and lack of conflict--quite the opposite, in fact! When we suffer, when we struggle, when we can't seem to make sense of what's going on in our hearts, or in our family's lives, or in our jobs, or in our church's life or in and around the world, we turn to God and say, "Thank you, Lord, that you know exactly what is going on right now. Thank you, Jesus, for promising to be with me and never leave me. Thank you for providing the body of Christ to befriend me and bring me comfort in these tough moments. Thank you, Jesus, most of all, for salvation and that you know how every single story ends. Thank you for the joy of God the Father and the blessing of the encouraging Holy Spirit. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for being my friend and embracing me under every circumstance! Praise the Lord!"
Friends, even as I typed the aforementioned prayer, I noticed that the more I praised God through writing from a grateful heart, the more at peace I became and my desire to glorify God intensified! This is the secret and the key to living a life of gratitude--giving thanks to God keeps us spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically healthy! That's right! In fact, an article from UCLA Health had this to say about the health benefits of living a grateful life: "Taking a moment to be thankful causes physiological changes in your body that initiate the parasympathetic nervous system — the part of your nervous system that helps you rest and digest. Gratitude and the response it causes help bring down your blood pressure, heart rate and breathing to help with overall relaxation (https://shorturl.at/WZfKG). Anybody here want healthy blood pressure, heart rate and better breathing? I know I do! So be grateful! Praise God! Thank him under ALL circumstances for this is God's will for you--to live life and live it more abundantly (John10:10)!
The Lord's work in our lives is full of grace (gift). The way to relate with God is to thank Him for Who He is, what He does, and to confess our sins and seek holiness in Christ at every turn. Our thanksgiving to God is our gift to the Lord (and our gratitude is best served with words of worship and serving the suffering in love). Everywhere you look is a blessing for which to be thankful, good or bad. If you want true joy, offer your thanks and remember that even in the most dire of situations, the Lord is available to listen, to understand, to help and to comfort you. Often our lives are filled with tragedies, overwhelming heartaches that seem to never go away. We experience cancer, divorce, family division, unforgiveness, broken relationships, suicide, death, job loss and severe depression (just to name a few). It would seem borderline rude to say that we can thank God in these circumstances, right? And yet, it's not rude at all to call upon the Lord and give him the praise for your suffering or another's. In fact, praising God in the storm is the best way to find peace. If we say we believe God's Word, Jesus incarnate, the Savior who speaks through the pages of our Bibles, then we also believe Ps. 118:24: "This is the day that the LORD has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it." But Pastor Will--are you kidding me? How do I have the energy to rejoice and be glad in something that seems so awful, so horrific, so deflating? The answer is found in the verse itself, friend. Since God is in our day, that means that He is present in our situation, and because He is with us and will never abandon us, that's all the assurance we need. Therefore, we CAN rejoice and be glad in the midst of our suffering because God promises to meet us in the midst of our suffering.
That fact alone deserves God-praise, amen?!?
I love what the late Dutch priest, Henri Nouwen said about choosing to be grateful:
Gratitude is the most fruitful way of deepening your consciousness that you are not an “accident,” but a divine choice. Itis important to realize how often we have had chances to be grateful and have not used them. When someone is kind to us, when an event turns out well, when a problem is solved, a relationship restored, a wound healed, there are very concrete reasons to offer thanks: be it with words, with flowers, with a letter, a card, a phone call, or just a gesture of affection...Every time we decide to be grateful it will be easier to see new things to be grateful for. Gratitude begets gratitude, just as love begets love.
So, how does one go about living a grateful life? Again, Nouwen offers us some insight:
How can we live a truly grateful life? When we look back at all that has happened to us, we easily divide our lives into good things to be grateful for and bad things to forget. But with a past thus divided, we cannot move freely into the future. With many things to forget we can only limp toward the future...True spiritual gratitude embraces all of our past, the good as well as the bad events, the joyful as well as the sorrowful moments. From the place where we stand, everything that took place brought us to this place, and we want to remember all of it as part of God’s guidance. That does not mean that all that happened in the past was good, but it does mean that even the bad didn’t happen outside the loving presence of God...Once all of our past is remembered in gratitude, we are free to be sent into the world to proclaim good news to others.
I want nothing more, as your pastor, than to encourage you to cultivate gratitude in your minds, hearts and souls. One way to do that is to open yourself to the work of Christ's Holy Spirit through scripture. When we are formed, spiritually, by the work of Jesus, we can develop habits of thanksgiving that make us more others-centered and less self-centered. When we consider all the ways the Bible teaches us about the necessity of living gratefully, it is imperative that we submit to God's instruction so that we can love Him best through the words and actions offered through a grateful life.
This is why I've decided to offer a 3-Thursday Bible Study Workshop (online only) entitled, "Cultivating Gratitude". There will be 3 livestream workshops beginning Thursday, Nov. 7th and continuing through the Thursdays of Nov. 14th and 21st. All will be livestream only and will begin at 10am on our church Facebook page (facebook.com/ubccares).
As we move into the month of Thanksgiving, may we learn to cultivate gratitude alongside fellow believers. Each livestream workshop will offer a biblical foundation for giving thanks; the teaching and online interaction will aid us in learning and growing together through the Holy Spirit. By the time we complete our third session on Nov. 21st, we'll be well on our way to cultivating a true sense of gratitude for God and all God's done in and through Christ Jesus, our Lord. I truly hope you'll join me and several others online during these three Thursdays in November!
Dear brothers and sisters, never forget that every experience in your life is an opportunity to praise and thank God. Please don't forget Rom. 8:28: "And we know that in all things, God works together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose."
After all, how can we be anything but grateful for God's greatest gift to the world: Jesus Christ?!? He will never leave us, nor ever forsake us! May we be forever grateful, dear church family, for Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior!
Trusting Christ's Holy Spirit to cultivate gratitude among us in the weeks ahead,
Pastor Will
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