Be Thankful!
“And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.” Colossians 3:15 (NLT)
by Alexandra Copeland
Colossians 3:15 (NLT) tells us,
“And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as
members of one body you are called to live in peace. And
always be thankful.” The first thought I had when I read
this verse some time ago was that it sounded like beautiful
music to my ears, but it just wasn’t my reality. Many things
had gone wrong in my life, and I wasn’t in a thankful place.
I couldn’t admit it to myself at the time, but the truth was
that my register of gratitude just wasn’t that high. On top
of that, I had absolutely no idea how incredibly important a
deep well of gratitude is to a person’s relationship with
God through Jesus Christ.
When we’re babies, we come out of the
wound depending on our parents to do things for us. We’re
consumed with what we can receive. As we grow up and depend
more on ourselves, we should learn to give back. Somewhere
in the transition from taker to giver, many of us fail to
cultivate the quality of being deeply thankful for what is
done for us when we cannot do for ourselves. This can spill
over into our relationship with God, and when it does, it is
very easy for things like arrogance and selfishness to sneak
in.
Colossians 3:15 demonstrates the
correlation between letting peace rule in our hearts and
always being thankful. Peace is a tranquil state of mind
that is free from turmoil and conflict. In the world we live
in, very few people actually have peace. It is because they
do not realize that true peace comes from trusting in God.
1 Thessalonians 5:18 The Message (MSG)
tells us, “Be cheerful
no matter what; pray all the time; thank God no matter what
happens. This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ
Jesus to live.” When you look at your circumstances and
stack those up against a mindset of cheerfulness and peace,
you might feel as I once did, that you have some ways to go
before getting there. The truth is that God has commanded us
to be cheerful, to pray all the time, and to thank Him no
matter what happens. He expects that we will take authority
through Jesus Christ and govern our emotions according to
what He has commanded in His Word.
There isn’t any wiggle room here for
ifs, ands, maybes or buts. We must have faith that as we
move one foot in front of the other to do the Will of the
Lord, He will meet us in the place of our need and take care
of us. And yes, as we do this, everything will not come up
roses all the time. Adversity will creep in. It can catch us
off guard, and sometimes it will knock us about a little
bit. When this happens, we do not have to let the situation
get the better of us. We get to choose how we are going to
respond to it.
The unexpected can be a doozy, and it
can cause us to question the goodness of God, especially
when the conditions and consequences it brings lasts far
longer than we feel it should. It may sound like a cliché,
but these are the times that we learn the most about
ourselves and about the amazing love and power of our
extraordinary Heavenly Father. God tells us a bit about His
wonder working power in Romans 8:28 (KJV). Through the
Apostle Paul, God said that
“all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are the
called according to his purpose.”
This is why we can remain thankful in
the midst of adversity. At all times, and in every way, God
is working everything out to our good. We don’t always
understand the details of what happens in our lives, but
Heavenly Father has promised to help us. Yes, there are
going to be times when we make mistakes, and they really
cost us big time. We’ve done things we shouldn’t have done,
and said things we shouldn’t have said. These things have
consequences and we’ll not escape them, but God is still
with us as we face life’s messes. He doesn’t leave us, but
He does expect that we will learn to lean on Him more, and
that we will walk more strongly on His Word, because walking
in His Word helps us to stay close to Him. It binds our
fellowship with Him through Jesus Christ.
A Godly feeling of thankfulness is
cultivated from understanding the high value of what we have
received. It’s forgetting about ourselves and focusing on
God. It’s recognizing that His mercy, grace, kindness, and
faithfulness endures forever. This is where a deep level of
appreciation should come in, but some of us just have a hard
time with this. Even though we’ve been on this Christian
journey a while, with all that we know about God’s Word and
with all the blessings we enjoy in life, we still do not
express the kind of gratitude that we should have. Whether
it is because we have never learned to see life from a
perspective of deep thankfulness or maybe it is because the
pain of disappointment rests so heavy upon our hearts that
we can’t see past it. Whatever the case may be, some of us
find it very challenging to express thankfulness in a very
joyous and overwhelming way. There’s help for this.
Giving thanks should not be a one day a
year ritual. It is a very foundational and spiritual
privilege that should be practiced daily. It’s not a surface
reality, but a deep and abiding one. It is important for
every Christian because we have been commanded by Heavenly
Father to give thanks. He tells us that in every situation,
condition, or circumstance, no matter how challenging it is,
we are to have a thankful heart and mind. God would not tell
us to do something that we are not capable of doing. So if
you find that this is problematic, you can be confident that
our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, will help you to be
pleasing to God in this area of your life.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (NLT) says,
“19 Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit,
who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not
belong to yourself, 20 for God bought you with a high price.
So you must honor God with your body.” Jesus
Christ purchased us for God. He did what no other could do,
and because of him we live in the presence of the Almighty
God. In and of ourselves, we couldn’t possibly cut the
mustard, but Jesus Christ helps us to please God through the
Spirit that indwells us. He does this because he loves us.
Scripture taken from the New King
James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used
by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked (NLT)
are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation,
copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House
Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights
reserved.
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