Today we begin our week of daily devotions on the theme of: "Thanks...for everything". One of the things that we are going to look at this week is living life with an attitude of gratitude. A couple of weeks ago at The Gathering, we read an interesting scripture that was easy to read, but hard to live. The scripture was 1st Thessalonians 5:16-17. "16Be joyful always; pray continually; 17give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus". Wow! That can be a tough one. The bottom line, live a life of thankfulness and gratitude. But how can we do that? Where do we start? Today, I think that a good place to start is to look an example that Jesus gives us in scripture. Open your Bible to Matthew 8:2-4. Read about this interaction between Jesus and a man with leprosy. If you don't have a Bible handy, you can click HERE to read it. Question, what does this have to do with living a life of thanks? The answer is found in verse four when Jesus says "But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them." Still Confused? Let's read it again in The Message translation:
Matthew 8:2-4
Jesus reached out and touched him, saying, "I want to. Be clean." Then and there, all signs of the leprosy were gone. Jesus said, "Don't talk about this all over town. Just quietly present your healed body to the priest, along with the appropriate expressions of thanks to God. Your cleansed and grateful life, not your words, will bear witness to what I have done."
What Jesus is telling this man is that he shouldn't just go tell everyone around town about this miracle but for him to kind of play "life pictionary" and let them see his life of expressions of thanks to God in it.
So what does this mean to us? To me, it can almost be put into three words: TALK IS CHEAP.
You see, when you think of all the God has given you, everything that you have, it's not enough to just say thank you. Remember what we just read: "Your cleansed and grateful life, not your words, will bear witness to what I have done". So today, think about how you can start living your life of gratitude. Living a thankful life is done not only by saying a few words of thanks when you sit down to eat (that is good) but by living it out every day. Try to make an effort this week to show everyone that you come in contact with your gratitude and thanks to God by your actions.
Talk to you tomorrow!!
Dan
Monday, November 10, 2008
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