Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe for our God is a consuming fire. Hebrews 12:27-28.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים):
The freedom of My children is glorious, but it is only received and maintained in gratitude. The giving of thanks from the knowledge of the heart of what I have freely given you in Christ. What you are not grateful for you will not keep.
Why? You will guard a treasure, secure and insure it, because it is precious to you, but something you regard as cheap and not particularly desirable, you take no efforts to guard and you will eventually abandon it. You just do not use it.
But what you consider a good and worthwhile gift you will use and use over and over and over. It delights your heart and you think of the donor each time you use it with thankfulness.
Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so live in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude. Colossians 2:6-7.
If you are not grateful for a gift someone gives you, you will never really receive it, you will set it aside and look to see if you can return it to get the money, pass it on to another, or throw it out.
Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces. Matthew 7:6.
They just see no value in holy things. Their god is their belly, i.e., the enticements of the flesh and the pride of life in personal prestige and glory. This will set you jealous and worried to grab all that you can obtain for yourself. But actually with this mindset you really lose all your joy in life.
The Israelites in the desert were never grateful except in infrequent intervals when something happened such as the parting of the Red Sea, water gushing from the rock, or the initial gift of manna and quail. But after a while they lost all gratitude for My benefits and complained about them!
They finally were calling My free gift of heavenly bread that kept over two million people well fed and in perfect health for over forty years, “this worthless food” that they loathed. Numbers 21:5. They had lost all gratitude. They limited Me in the goodness they would receive from Me. And at that moment they had put down the shelter of My good will around them and the snakes of the desert came through and bit them so many died. Satan seeks to steal your gratitude for then he can still your healing, your prosperity and your joy.
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 the enemy will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you. Deuteronomy 28:47-48.
But the Israelites repented saying “We have sinned, because we have spoken against the LORD and you,” and they asked Moses to intercede for them, so Moses interceded, and at My direction, raised up the bronze serpent on the cross and whoever beheld it was healed.
As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. John 3:15.
And years later, when My gift of Jesus, the true heavenly bread, John 6:47-51, came to save you He told you that “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” John 6:40.
Do you seek the Bread of Heaven in grateful praise each day to eat His body and blood or do you just regard it as nothing but common food and of no value to heal and cleanse you for eternal life? For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep (i.e., die physical death). 1 Corinthians 11:30.
It is called “Eucharist” which means thanksgiving.
Where your treasure is, there your heart is, and it is a heart of gratitude if the treasure is given you freely. It is the freedom of My children, My heirs, for everything I have is yours, the greater your thankfulness and gratitude, the greater your capacity to receive becomes. You are not constricting the flow of abundance from Heaven by indifference and ingratitude.
You will keep on hearing, but will not understand; you will keep on seeing, but will not perceive; for the heart of this people has become dull, with their ears they scarcely hear, and they have closed their eyes, otherwise they would see with their eyes, hear with their ears, and understand with their heart and return, and I would heal them. 14-15.
But you who have eyes to see and ears to hear are blessed. Gratitude is the catalyst you add to faith that brings the result. Believe you have My promise from My Word when you ask for it and you will receive it. And how do I know you believe it? You have grateful joy as you anticipate the sure result.
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:4-7.
If you secure your day early in the morning with gratitude you will have a day of glory, the glorious freedom of My children. It will set you in the flow of Heaven and open the floodgates from above. For every good thing given and every perfect gift comes down from Me your Father of lights in which there is no darkness.
And how do you open those floodgates? Enter My gates with thanksgiving, My courts with hymns of praise.
In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus would get up, leave the house where He was staying, and go to a secluded place, and pray there. Mark 1:35.
The Lord LORD has given Me the tongue of discipleship, to sustain the weary with a word. He awakens Me morning by morning; He awakens My ear to listen as a disciple. Isaiah 50:4.
And there, in our place of prayer, Jesus would start His day rejoicing in the Holy Spirit and giving Me thanks. Luke 10:21. Abraham even saw His day and rejoiced.
“Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” John 8:56.
Each morning My mercies are new. You need to be gathering them in the morning. The manna melted away by noon.
“This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. The LORD’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I have hope in Him.” The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him.” Lamentations 3:22-24.
And when do I tell you to seek Me? Early. Not when the whole day is done and over and you have gone off in whatever negative direction you felt when you woke up and let yourself dread the day and its worries, stresses, and fears. Do not let your mind stay in darkness, because that is where Satan will try to hold you in the morning when you rise, remember he wants to steal your day and take you captive to give everyone a bad day of anger, offense and sin. He wants you to get up feeling like a failure that cannot face the work of the day, defeated already as you crawl out of bed as if to a painful and rude awakening that it is not a day off from work or school or even from caring for another in your own home.
Is that the way I want you to begin your day? Obviously not. I want you to encourage yourself in My Word until you are walking in triumph spreading My sweet aroma everywhere, but especially in you heart as you wake the dawn with your song and cause the darkness to flee.
You often wake up dry, and I mean both spiritually and physically. And if that is the way you set your day, your day will be a burden to you and everyone else as well.
So first thing when you arise—drink a big glass of water to hydrate your physical body and then take a big drink of the living water of the Spirit to hydrate your spirit and soul. And you need to hydrate throughout the day, both physically and spiritually.
“O God, You are my God; early will I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water. So I have looked for You in the sanctuary, to see Your power and Your glory. Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You. Thus I will bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your Name. My soul shall be satisfied as with the anointing and abundance, and my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips.” Psalm 63:1-5.
Start your day with praise songs in the Spirit and in the understanding if you want to get in the flow of the Kingdom. Seek first the Kingdom and all will be added to you and then I can take care of your day.
My heart is steadfast, O God; I will sing and make music with all my being. Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn. Psalm 108:1-2; Psalm 57:8.
So how do you get yourself into the place of gratitude, which is the place of grace, in the morning? You solidify the joys of the day before. Then you will switch off the negative dread of the day to a treasure hunt to gather up the new mercies for this day.
How do you do that?
Put Me in remembrance (and yourself as well), by making a list each morning of what you were grateful for the day before. Gather up the Manna from Heaven that fell in your life in your “gratitude list” in a “gratitude journal” each morning of the good things that came to you from Me the day before, so that you enter My gates with thanksgiving to call in the graces for the new day.
“It is good to give thanks to the LORD and to sing praises to Your name, O Most High; to declare Your lovingkindness in the morning and Your faithfulness by night. Psalm 92:1-2.
To declare My lovingkindness in the morning and My faithfulness at night. This will set your day and your night in the flow of the beauty of the Kingdom of Heaven, the great Kingdom of light where all is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. It is a place where each enters with awesome gratitude. It is a place beyond all you can imagine or think and I prepared it for YOU who have faith in Me and My Son.
What are they singing, and not at My direction but on their own, “Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen.” Revelation 7:12.
I love you. I love to hear your sweet voice and see your lovely face in the morning when you wake so your heart is open for Me to shower your day with blessings and your night as well. Gratitude makes the good things you have multiply. Gratitude sanctifies your life so the devil cannot steal what is yours. And that is the place of grace that is the glorious freedom of My children.
The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime; and His song will be with me in the night, A prayer to the God of my life. Psalm 42:8.