A joyful heart causes good healing, but a broken spirit dries up the bones. Proverbs 17:22.
Indeed, the Lord will comfort Zion; He will comfort all her waste places. And her wilderness He will make like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and sound of a melody. Isaiah 51:3.
Let them also offer sacrifices of thanksgiving, and tell of His works with joyful singing. Psalm 107:22.
Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving. Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. Psalm 100:1.
The voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of those who say, “Give thanks to the LORD of hosts, for the LORD is good, for His lovingkindness is everlasting”; and of those who bring a thank offering into the house of the LORD. For I will restore the fortunes of the land as they were at first,’ says the LORD. Jeremiah 33:11.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God says:
Love is grateful. If you are grateful for people you will treat them kindly. You will have love for them.
Celebrate others. Do not always be saying what is wrong with people. If you do, you will treat them with contempt. Stop pointing the finger in blame and raise your hands in thanksgiving, blessing and praise.
What you are not grateful for you will turn away from your life.
I tell you to rejoice always, pray without ceasing and to give constant thanks. You enter My gates with thanksgiving. Why do I tell you so often to give thanks? If you keep giving thanks you will create a grateful heart in yourself and a grateful heart will give you peace. A hate filled heart will give you anxiety and agitation. There is no peace for the wicked, they are like the tossing waves of a tumultuous sea.
If you are not grateful for your job, you will despise it and not give it your best efforts. Your work will be sloppy and careless. You may even cheat your employer and cut corners. Everyone suffers when you have an ungrateful heart. You never will give your best for something you do not value.
Gratitude leads to honor and that leads to favor and promotion with Me and men.
Thanksgiving and joy go together. Thanksgiving and joy grow together. Grateful hearts are singing hearts making melody unto the One upon the throne who gave His life for you.
Grateful hearts are joyful hearts, good medicine causing healing for all. Yes, a grateful heart, a heart filled with thankful praise, is a joyful heart that causes healing in your soul and body. All the days of the afflicted are bad, but a cheerful heart has a continual feast. Proverbs 15:15.
Do you want feast or famine in your life? And this is of the heart to start but it does not stay there. It will flow out like a river of living water to water all your waste places until they become gardens of abundance.
Thanksgiving multiplies the good in your life. Think of Jesus with the five loaves and two fish looking at over five thousand hungry people, expectant with hope. He raised His eyes to Me, gave thanks, blessed them and gave them to His disciple to feed the people. And you know the amazing outcome, everyone ate until they were satisfied and then twelve baskets of leftovers were gathered up.
Imitate Me as My dear children so you can share My joy and your joy can be full. I am thankful. That may surprise you, but did you never note in the parable of the prodigal son how thrilled and thankful, how joyous and glad, the father is when his son comes back to him? I am so thankful when a person comes to their senses at last and comes back into My everlasting arms! Comes again to dwell with Me in the abundance of My house. And I reward those who serve Me: “Well done good and faithful servant!” That is thanksgiving. And I ask you to pray for the salvation of all men and I ask you to pray for government leaders, and I am thankful when you do so as to authorize Me to work on earth for the good of all. And I ask you to witness for Me and to save souls. I ask you to lay your hands on the sick so they will recover. I ask you to cast out demons in My Name. And when you do these things, I am thankful. You are precious in My eyes and I love every one of you. I am thankful for each one of you. And I sing with joy over you as one does at festivals. Zephaniah 3:17. Every time you turn to Me and lean on Me, I am thankful.
And do you know that everyone in Heaven is thankful to be there?
Think about too how thankful Mary was for My Word to her. She treasured and pondered it in her heart and her heart and soul sang for joy. David too, her ancestor, sang in caves as he hid from Saul in thanksgiving for My loving presence and protection. Do you sing of that at night as he did too? It brought him strength and comfort to persevere in the face of danger.
“Give thanks to the LORD for He is good, His love endures forever!” Sang the sons of Judah as the approached three enemy armies, and this set off a chain of reactions that caused the three enemy armies who had united against Jerusalem to turn on one another and destroy every one of them. They had planned to kill My people and instead they killed each other. Thanksgiving clears the way.
“It is good to give you thanks, O LORD, to sing praises to your Name, “ It is good like a medicine.
Moses told the Israelites on the verge of entering the Promised Land and receiving the abundance of things- cities, homes, vineyards, fruit trees, wells, and bumper crops—not to get so caught up and full in their riches that they forgot Me who had freely given all they had to them from My love. And how were they not to forget? By giving thanks. Thanksgiving takes your mind and heart back to the source of your blessing. It keeps you attached to the giver and not just to the gift.
Gratitude is humility. A grateful heart is a humble heart and I give grace to the humble. Gratitude comes from knowing that there was a source of your blessing other than yourself. You are just as grateful for the giver as you are for the gift.
Love gives and love receives with gratitude. Be grateful for the gift but even more grateful when I give you an abundance for every good work so that you too can imitate Me as My dear children and give gifts to men. I give seed to the sower and bread to the eater.
Depression and complaining result from a lack of gratitude. Stop focusing on lack and focus on the abundance I have freely given you in Christ. When Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and took the people captive to Babylon it was not something that happened suddenly. For a long time My people had not been grateful for all I gave them and continued to give them and had turned aside to follow other “gods.” They refused to obey My laws and turned their backs, not their faces, to Me. They looked for another source of supply, but there is no other. They did not rejoice in the abundance of things but looked for more till they refused to release slaves and forgive debts in Jubilee years. And because they did not rejoice, did not have gratitude and value the abundance of things I freely gave them, they lost it all and were destroyed. But Moses had warned them of this long ago. “Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and a glad heart, for the abundance of all things; therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in the lack of all things; and He will put an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.” Deuteronomy 28:47-48.
Give Me your offering of thanksgiving and owe no one a debt except to love them.
One of the sacrifices under the Old Covenant was the thanksgiving offering. “Then Hezekiah said, “Now that you have consecrated yourselves to the LORD, come near and bring sacrifices and thank offerings to the house of the LORD.” And the assembly brought sacrifices and thank offerings, and all those who were willing brought burnt offerings.” 2 Chronicles 29:31. The strength of the Kingdom was in the thank offerings. A grateful nation is a godly nation. Be careful not to sit in the seat of scoffers.
I love you. Gratitude is good for you. Try it.