Transcription
I do what I do because I've seen God's power transform my own life, and He will do it for you. The key to everything is found in God's word. I'm Joyce Meyer, and I believe that God can heal you everywhere you hurt.
[Applause]
Well, welcome to Enjoying Everyday Life. I'm so glad that you're with me today, and I pray that you're going to really enjoy the teaching today. You know, attitudes is a very important subject, and you can change your attitude from bad to good and literally change your whole life with it. And so I'm going to talk today about just having a thankful attitude. And really, no matter how often we hear about having a thankful attitude, we need to hear it over and over and over because it is so easy to slip into murmuring and grumbling and complaining about the things we don't like or that we don't have, forgetting about all the blessings we have and how many things we have in our life to be thankful for.
You know, your attitude begins in your mind. It begins with your thoughts, and then it becomes your words and your actions and your attitude. And your attitude is really like just the posture that you take towards something. Your attitude will affect your body language. If you don't like something, there's going to be a face made or a certain way that you'll stand. But if you like something, you'll usually have a smile on your face. And I, I just want to tell you, God is so good to us. Now, I know we hear that a lot and say it a lot, but God is really very, very good to us. And many times we do not deserve it. And there's so many things to be thankful for. And I don't know who might be watching today, but maybe, just maybe, there's a few of you that kind of got on up on the cranky side of the bed this morning and you started right away because the devil loves to do this. Put thoughts in our mind about, well, you did this to me and you didn't do that for me, and I've been praying about this and nothing's happened, and you know, we need this and we don't have it. But this is a wakeup call to say you can stop that right now. And instead, you can think about all the things that you have to be thankful for.
You know, a lot of mornings I just thank God that I can walk and talk and see and hear. Just think of how many people there are that wake up in the morning and if they're crippled and have to use a wheelchair, just how hard it is just to go to the bathroom. And those of us who can just jump out of bed and go do that, we forget about sometimes what we do have and we don't, we start thinking too much about what we don't have. So, Philippians 2:5 says, "Let this same attitude and purpose and humble mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus. Let him be your example in humility." And you know, I think humility does have a lot to do with being grateful because if you're humble, you realize that there's so many blessings in your life that you have that you really don't deserve, and it makes you very thankful for them. But we're going to focus on, "Let this same attitude be in you which was in Christ Jesus." Now, He had a good attitude. We never hear Jesus complaining. He didn't complain when He was on the cross. He didn't complain in the Garden of Gethsemane. He didn't complain when His disciples acted like little babies and fought over which of them was the greatest. He was always thankful.
A thankful attitude is the will of God. It's kind of interesting. You know, so many people, they want to know, "What is God's will for my life? How can I know God's will for my life?" Well, maybe there is something specific that God wants you to do, but there are things that the Bible talks about that are what I would call general things that we all are supposed to do. And being thankful is one of them. And I think sometimes if we're not doing those things, then if there is something specific God wants us to do, we may never find out what that is. Because these are basic things that are very, very important.
1 Thessalonians 5:18 and 19: "Thank God in everything." I'm going to say that a few times because I, I want to make sure we don't just rush past that. "Thank God in everything." Goes on to say, "No matter what the circumstances might be." Think about that. "Thank God in everything." So, if you're having a problem right now, even a very big problem, or even if you've gotten a bad report from the doctor, or if one of your kids is giving you a lot of trouble, or there's an issue in your marriage, or you have a financial issue, don't just focus on the problem, but focus also on all the things in your life that are going good. And you can, you can be honest with God. "Father, I don't like what's going on in my life right now. It hurts and it's hard, but I'm thankful to You." If you can't think of anything else, just be thankful that you're born again and you're going to go to heaven when your time here on earth is up. We should be thankful that our names are written in the Lamb's book of life and that we're going to spend eternity with God. "Thank God in everything, no matter what the circumstances might be. Be thankful and give thanks." And I, I really like that. "Be thankful and give thanks."
You know, if you talk to people about, "Are you a thankful person?" A lot of people would say, "Well, yeah, sure. I'm a thankful person." But how often do you give thanks? Not just to God, but also to people. This morning, I was thinking about, uh, well, actually, it was yesterday. I was thinking about how much time I spend writing books and how Dave is so really agreeable to give me that time. You know, there's a lot of times when he would like me to go and do something with him, and I say, "I can't. I need to write today." Actually, that happens a lot. And so, I thanked him this morning for giving me the time to write without it being an irritation to him. You know, there's a lot of things that I have to take time to do that doesn't allow me to be maybe what you would call a normal wife because I have this call on my life to preach the gospel. And Dave is very good about all that. Matter of fact, he said this morning when I thanked him, he said, "Well, sure." He said, "What you're doing when you write those books is helping people all over the world, and I'm glad that you have that time." But I wonder how many things you could thank your kids for, or the person you're married to, or a good friend, or your parents, or whatever, that you just don't, you know, so often we just don't take the time to verbalize. I even called my daughter this morning and I, I thanked her because she does so much for me that makes my life easier. And I called her and told her, "I just want you to know I love you and I want to thank you for all the things that you do for me."
And can I tell you this? The more thankful you are, the happier you're going to be. Let me say it again. The more thankful you are, the happier you're going to be. Do you know when we murmur and grumble and complain and find fault with so many things, all it does is make us unhappy. But you can increase your joy just by increasing your attitude of gratitude. So, "Thank God in everything, no matter what the circumstances might be. Be thankful and give thanks, for this is the will of God for you who are in Christ Jesus, the revealer and the mediator of that will." And verse 19 says, "Do not quench, suppress, or subdue the Holy Spirit." So this is basically saying that when we're not thankful, we are hindering the work of the Holy Spirit in our life. And I don't know about you, but I sure don't want to do that. I want the Holy Spirit to be able to do in and through me whatever He wants to do. He's our helper, our strengthener, and I need all the strength that I can get. So, thanking God in everything, no matter what the circumstances might be, is a tall order. No doubt about that. I think we're born grouchy, but we're born again thankful. And so, we're always having to say no to the flesh and yes to the spirit. And that's going to be that way as long as we're alive.
In Galatians 5, it says, "The spirit wars against the flesh, and the flesh wars against the spirit." And they are continually antagonistic toward one another. So all day long, every day, we're making decisions whether we're going to go with what we know God wants, or whether we're going to do what the enemy wants us to do. Now, there is a scripture in the Bible that I think really kind of, I, you know, it's hard to say it's the best scripture in the Bible because there's so many great ones, but I think this scripture is one that kind of brings everything together. And it's Romans 8:28: "All things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose." Now, I know that you probably hear that scripture a lot, and pretty much anytime that I'm in front of a crowd and I use that scripture, people clap. It's a very comforting and encouraging scripture. But I want, I want you to think about that. "All things end up working out for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose." If you love God and you're doing the best you can to walk in His will, then no matter what happens in your life, God can cause it to work out for your good. That's so encouraging to me.
Think about it like this. You know, if, if you bake a cake, especially if you're not using a box mix, but you start from scratch, you have a lot of different ingredients. It's been so long since I've baked a cake, I don't know what they all are, but I know there's flour, and I know there's oil, and there's eggs, and there's sugar, and there's a lot of different things. Well, you know, any one of those by themselves would be very distasteful. Who would want to eat two or three cups of flour? I certainly wouldn't. Or even sugar. I mean, you, I wouldn't want to sit and eat a whole cup of sugar. It would make me sick. But it's interesting when you put all those things together, they bake a cake. And everybody probably likes cake. And so God is able to do that in our life. He can take maybe the good things that happen, and He can take the bad things that happen, and He can mix them all together and make them work out for our good.
You know, one thing that people don't realize that I love to teach on is experience. And everything we go through that's difficult, we are getting experience. And that experience will do one of two things, or it'll do both. It will help us the next time we go through that to know how to handle it. Or we're getting experience that we can use to help other people when they're going through difficult times.
Psalm 107:2 says, "And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving." It may be a sacrifice sometimes to be thankful because really, you're going through a tough time. You're hurting, and being thankful is not really what you really want to do. Maybe some of you right now are, you're just, maybe you're hurting. Maybe you've got a migraine headache, or maybe your back is hurting, or, or you're having trouble with your kid at school, and the school has called and said they want you to come up and talk to the principal, and you're like, "Oh no, not again." Well, you might not feel like giving thanks. It might be sacrificial, but you can say that to God. "God, I offer up to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving because no matter what is going on that I don't like, there are far more things in my life that I do like than those that I don't."
I have shared before that one time I was not real happy with Dave, and I was just thinking about all the things that he didn't do that I wished he would do. And God challenged me to make two lists. Make a list of all the things you don't like about Dave, and then make a list of all the things you do like about Dave. And you know what? The things that I liked, that list was so much longer than the few things, and I mean it was very few things that I didn't like. And I think really all of us are like that. Sometimes you just need to stop and think, "What are my blessings?" You know, I live in a city, St. Louis, where it gets really cold in the winter. And when it's really, really cold outside, very often I will thank God that I have a home and a comfortable bed to get in with all the covers that I want, and that I'm not living out on the street somewhere covered up with a cardboard box trying to stay warm because I'm homeless. Think about how blessed you are. And it will make you so much happier than if you think about what you don't have.
Psalm 34:1 says, "I will extol the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth." I love that. Well, you know, thanking God for specific things is really good. But how about if we just pray that God will help us just live with an attitude of gratitude where that's our normal go-to attitude is, "I'm thankful. I'm always thankful." When a person has an attitude of gratitude, it says a lot about their character. And you know, character is really important. I love to have friends that have good character, people that I know that I can count on and depend on. And you know, we teach sometimes about the character of God. He was always good. He's a God of justice. He always makes wrong things right. He's a provider. He always meets all of our needs. And these are things that we can count on all the time. We don't have to wonder, "Will He do this this time and maybe not the next time?" He'll do that every time.
Petition usually outweighs praise. It's much easier to ask God for things than it is to remember to go back and thank Him for them. Ten lepers requested healing, but only one returned to give thanks. Let's look at Luke 17:11-16. Now, on His way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee, and He was going into a village, and 10 men who had leprosy met Him, and they stood at a distance and they called out in a loud voice, "Jesus, Master, have pity on us." And when He saw them, He said to them, "Now go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were cleansed. Well, they had to take a step of faith. They didn't know for sure what was going to happen as they went, but we always have to take a step of faith in our dealings with God. One of them, when he saw he was healed, one of them when he saw he was healed, came back praising God in a loud voice. You know, when God has done a lot for you in your life, sometimes it's hard to be quiet about it. We get a little bit loud. We get a little bit excited about all that God has done. And he threw himself at Jesus's feet and he thanked Him. And the Bible says, "And he was a Samaritan." Now, why does it say that? Well, the Samaritans were hated by the Jews. Now, I don't know if the other nine were Jews, but let's just suppose for a minute that they were, and the Jewish people were the ones that were supposed to be the religious ones. And in verse 17, Jesus said, "Were not all 10 cleansed? Where then are the other nine?" And you know what? That's a scripture that makes me feel sad. But if we think about that, if we're going to go by that percentage, if 10% of the petitioners are truly thankful, that means 90% of all the people that God does things for don't bother to come back and give thanks to God after they get what they want. Let's don't be the kind of people that forget the goodness of God. You know, especially in the Old Testament, God warns the people over and over and over, "Remember, do not forget the things that I brought you through and how I blessed you." It's dangerous to forget how good God has been to us. We need to remember and honestly, we need to think about it every day. Keep a thank you journal. I do. Thanking God for the things that He gives me, for little things that people do for me, for gifts that go, that people send me when I'm out and about, and it's obvious that God is giving me favor. Don't ever get tired of thanking God. And don't ever get tired of even thanking God for the same things over and over and over.
In Philippians 1:3-5, Paul said, "I thank my God every time I remember you." He was talking to the people who were partnering with him in ministry. And he said, "In all my prayers for you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day you heard it until now." Well, you know, that's always been interesting to me that here's people that from the very first time they heard the gospel, they started partnering financially with Paul because they understood that he could not preach the gospel and do the work needed to also support himself while he was doing it. And Paul said, "Every time I remember you, I thank God for you." So what about the people in our life that do things for us on a continual basis that every time we think of them, we should say, "Father, thank You that You put them in my life." Things like our families, our homes, and our jobs, our health, our salvation, Jesus, the Holy Spirit. Thank God that you have a purpose. You know, I'm so glad that I have a purpose in life. I don't want to just sit around day after day after day and do nothing. I'm glad that I have a purpose, something to put myself into that's helping other people.
You know, the word "thanksgiving" appears, the word "thanks" and "thanksgiving" appears 116 times in the Bible, and we're told 73 times to give thanks. So that's about 200 times. So I would say that that's something that is pretty important. And you know what? Everything that God tells us to do, believe it or not, is for our benefit. That's why I say that the more thankful we are and the more we voice that thanksgiving, the happier we're going to be.
Now, one of my very favorite scriptures is Philippians 4:6. And it says that we should mix our prayers with thanksgiving. Philippians 4:6: "Do not be anxious about anything." I believe this scripture is the answer to anxiety. "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." Don't worry about anything. The minute that you start to worry about something, turn that worry into a prayer. Ask God to take care of it, and then start thanking Him for things that He's already done in your life. That would be a good time to remember, "God, I remember the last time I had a problem, and I remember that You took care of it, and I know You're going to take care of this one, too." This is a great time. Don't ever ask God for something without thanking Him for some things that He's already done. Could I say that again? Don't ever ask God for something without thanking Him for something that He's already done.
God is so good. You know, Daniel was a great man of God, and he was very blessed. And the Bible says that three times a day, Daniel prayed and gave thanks. And the king put out a law that nobody could pray to anybody but him for a certain amount of time. And Daniel's habit was always to go to his room these three times a day, open his windows, and pray. Get on his knees and pray and give thanks to God. And Daniel 6:10 says, "Now, when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem, and three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before." I love that he was going to continue to give thanks to God no matter what the king said and no matter what kind of threat there was against him.
You know, thankfulness protects us from the poison of envy and jealousy. Sometimes it's so easy to get envious or jealous of somebody else. But if you thank God for what you have, and I want to add a little something here that may sound strange. Thank God for what you don't have. You say, "Well, why in the world would I do that?" Well, you know what? If God hasn't given it to you yet, then that means that you're either not ready to handle it yet, or it's not the right time yet. And I'll tell you something, there's nothing worse than to have something that you're really not ready to handle. So, how about saying, "God, I thank You for the things that You've done in my life. And I thank You for the things that I've asked You for that You haven't done yet, because that means it's not the right timing for me." I believe that the Lord has shown me that if I ask Him for something and I don't get it, it's only because He has something better in mind, and I don't really know how to ask Him for that yet.
So, don't forget today's message. Be a thankful person. All things working out for good. I mean, of course, I can, you know, I can tell you my story and just quickly say that, you know, how could anybody in their right mind stand and say, "I'm not even really sorry that what happened to me happened." Now, I can't explain it, but I know that some way, somehow, my life is better because of it. I know that. I know that. I don't think if I would have had this great beginning in life and just been treated like Pollyanna, I don't think my life would be as good now as it is. I don't think I would know God as well. I don't think I would have the depth of relationship that I have with Him. I don't know that I'd be helping as many people. Let me tell you something. You can turn your pain into somebody else's gain. Your mess can become your message.
I'm on a mission to find really unique and creative things to be thankful for in my life. I mean, I like all the regular stuff. Thank You for salvation. Thank You for food and home and family and Jesus. I mean, I love all that. That's all important to do that. But I just think there's things that we miss. I really do. Now, I thank God a lot for clean water. It's amazing to go to the sink and just turn a button and get it hot or cold as much as you want. When I get up in the morning, I usually thank God that I can walk, talk, see, and hear. Amen. There's so much to be thankful for. So much to be thankful for. Let's get creative in gratitude. Does that sound fun? I mean, let's just get really creative in our gratitude. So, we've started this whole campaign. We've got a big bookstore at the office. It's got all glass windows. And I said, "I want all those windows covered up with little sticky notes of different things that you're thankful for." Let's don't be like the lepers. Ten were healed and only one, only one came back. If we're going to take that percentage, that means only 10% of people are grateful, and 90% are murmuring and grumbling, no matter what they do for you.
The Bible says, "Be anxious for nothing, but in all things through prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God." Why should God give me, if I'm a complainer, why should God answer my prayer and just give me more to complain about? The heart has to change. "Do all things without grumbling and fault finding and complaining against God." I'm, I'm back to Philippians 2:14 and 15. "Do all things without grumbling and fault finding complaining." This says against God. It's like, "Well, God, I'm not complaining against You," but He says we are. "That you may show yourselves to be blameless, guileless, innocent, uncontaminated children out in the world in the midst of a wicked generation among whom you are seen as bright lights and shining stars." God's saying, "You're My people. Get out there and give some flavor to a dull, tasteless world." How about going to your place of work and giving some flavor there? Don't just sit and complain about your workplace like everybody else at lunch. Be a person who, well, you know, yeah, you know, there's some things that need to change here, but I, I'm thankful to have a job because you know what? If you don't want yours, somebody will take it. Okay. Okay.
I have three scriptures that I want to share with you that I hope and pray puts a little bit of fear in you about complaining. I think we need to be afraid to complain. I mean, it obviously hasn't totally stopped me yet, but you know, maybe tonight will help me. I am really a grateful and a thankful person, but I find myself, you know, 1 Corinthians 10:9-11: "We should not tempt the Lord, try His patience and become a trial to Him, critically appraising Him and exploiting His goodness." See, God is basically saying, "I am so good to you. So when you complain, you're exploiting My goodness." "As some of them did, and were killed by poisonous serpents." He's talking about the Israelites when they were going through the desert. "Nor should you discontentedly complain as some of them did, and they were put entirely away by the destroyer, which is death. 23,000 of them fell dead in one day." Serpents got into the camp through murmuring, grumbling, and complaining. Now, thank God we live in the dispensation of grace, but I don't think we're going to drop dead if we complain, but I do think that we block our blessings, at least to some degree. Thank God for His mercy. In there, you know, His goodness is not based on my ability to never complain, but I think it's a principle that if we don't learn to live with a grateful heart, and especially being grateful when things are not going our way, and to give thanks, not only to God, but to people. I'm telling you, I think you can change the atmosphere where you work. You can change the atmosphere in your home. You can change the atmosphere in a church, perhaps in a city, perhaps even in a nation. What would happen if just the Christians got thankful?
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We should be the happiest people on the face of the earth because we're not going to hell. I mean, that's something to be thankful for. We're going to miss the whole brimstone and fire thing. Thank You, God. Yeah. Thank You. Amen. If you're not happy now, you'll get happy.
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So 23,000 of them died, and then they got a revelation.
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"Moses, pray for us, for we have sinned." Really? I wonder what gave you that clue. I think if nothing else, we can at least go to bed at night and ask God to forgive us for any time we complained and murmured during the day. Amen.
Now, Numbers 14:1-6. "And all the congregation cried out with a loud voice, and they wept all night. And all the Israelites grumbled and they hated their situation. And they accused Moses and Aaron, to whom the whole congregation said, 'We just wish we would have died in Egypt, or that we would have died in the wilderness.'" See, these are the people that were begging God to get them out of bondage in Egypt. Wonder how many times we beg God to change our situation and He doesn't take us the route that we planned. Hello. You know, we really don't want to be transformed. We want to be translated. Some of you don't know the meaning of those two words. Okay? To get translated means I'm here, and then all of a sudden I'm there. I get to skip all the going through part. But when you're transformed, God arranges circumstances that force you to trust Him and to stop being independent and stubborn and bullheaded. And there's a brokenness that has to take place in our life. And only God knows how to break us in the right places where we're not destroyed. He breaks our pride. He breaks our stubbornness. Hallelujah. Come on.
The Bible says that there was a shorter route that God could have taken them to the promised land, but He took them the long, hard way on purpose because they were not ready for war. See, you think when you get into the promised land, when you're getting everything you want, there's going to be no more trouble from the devil. No. Every new level is a new devil. So, we have to learn how to do war and how to face our enemies while we're still in the wilderness because every level of new responsibility means you're going to have new things coming against you. Now, I can tell you, most of it just don't even bother me anymore. It's just like, been there, done that, know where this is headed. Okay, now watch this because this is just really good. So, verse three, Numbers 14:3: "Why does the Lord bring us to this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones are going to be a prey. It'd just be better for us to return to Egypt." Then they said to one another, "Let us choose a captain and return to Egypt." And there's thousands of these people.
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Who became the leaders. Now, come on. There's a message here. Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the Israelites. When they heard the complaining, it grieved them so much because they understood the danger of what they were doing that they just fell down flat on their faces before God and I'm sure started praying for God to forgive them. And Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were among the scouts who had searched out the land. They rent their clothes. They were so grieved that they tore their clothes. Back then, that was a sign of great grief. When somebody would die, they would rip their clothes. And so these are four men that get talked about in the Bible as being heroes. The rest of them, you never hear anything about again. I want to ask you, do you want to be talked about as a hero for God? Or do you want to just get lost somewhere out in the wilderness and maybe yes, end up in heaven, but never really do anything here that's going to count for anything?
[Music]
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"Oh, God, what's wrong with my life? I don't understand what's wrong with my life. God, what's wrong with my life? My lousy, stinking, terrible, miserable life that I hate. I wish I had somebody else's life, God." Now, thank You for my life, Lord. Thank You for everything that's even happened to me in my life because I trust You to work it out for good. You know what? If you're bold enough, you can even thank God for the pain that you're going through right now. You know why? Because when you're hurting, you either go under or you go over. But if you go over, you get to know God in a way that you could not possibly have known Him without that pain in your life.
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You can have something in God that nobody can take away from you.
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Well, there's always something to be thankful for, even in difficult circumstances. Being grateful adds power to our lives, while complaining brings weakness. Ginger joins me now with some of your questions on this topic. Well, Ginger, did you get some interesting questions sent in? We did. And are they going to be easy for me to answer? Well, I think this time they're right in your wheelhouse. Absolutely. Um, I, I think there's something about gratitude that people easily overlook, right? Because it just seems like a part of life. Maybe, maybe it's good, but is it really that valuable? And so Ted from Alabama says, "In what day, in what ways do you think gratitude can be powerful in our lives?"
Well, I think that, uh, gratitude definitely, we, the more we focus on what we have to be thankful for, the less we tend to complain. And that's a big one. Yeah. Well, complaining really is a bigger problem than most people think it is. It actually really is sin. And thank, being thankful has a lot to do with your prayers being answered. It, in Philippians, it says that, uh, "Be anxious for nothing, but in all things by, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God." And I know one time the Lord put on my heart, and you said, "Why should I get, if you're going to complain about what you've already got, why should I give you more because you'll just complain about that, too?" Wow. And that's really true. And it just, it, it's a much more important thing than what we even begin to realize. I really believe that the more thankful we are, the more powerful we are, the more spiritual power you have, and the less authority the enemy has over your life. Yeah, that's huge because we don't think about thankfulness as powerful. No, we, we think about it, uh, in a very different way, but we don't often think about that it's, it's opening a door to strength in our lives. Yeah.
Well, it's like, you know, we have Thanksgiving once a year, and you know, we need to be thanking God all day long, every day. I mean, there's, how, how many things, even like to thank God for the things that He protects you from that you don't even know would have happened had He not been protecting you. And so there's always things to be thankful for, no matter how bad you have it. Well, and of course, you talk about the importance of our thoughts all the time, the battlefield of the mind, and that is a great way to help win that battle, yeah, is to focus on the good things. That's right.
So, another question for you here. This is from Carrie in Florida. "How can I have gratitude for the trials and tribulations I've been going through since 2014? I've had three major surgeries. One left me with limited motion. Um, I'm in constant, debilitating pain, and I would love to hear your thoughts on this."
Well, one thing I think that, let's take the pain for example. I think that the more things that you find to be thankful for, the less you even pay attention to the pain that you have. We know that whatever we focus on becomes the biggest thing in our lives. And you know, the Bible says to be thankful in things, but it also says to be thankful for everything. And that's a little bit harder, you know, because like she's saying, how can you be thankful for bad things? But the way that I feel that the Bible explains that is because it says that all things work together for good. And so if you believe that no matter what's happening, see, I think that when we're having a very difficult time, if we complain all the way through it, then it may not end up working out for good. But if we will be obedient to God even when we're hurting and say, "I'm going to thank You in this and for this. If it's something bad, I don't believe God did it, but I'm going to focus on You and thank You, right? Because I know that You can take anything, no matter how bad it is, and You can work it out for good in my life." And I, I, I have come to the point where I, that's just not something I say. I really, really, really believe that. And when you do, then it makes it easier. And you always grow spiritually when you go through difficult things. I mean, really, to be honest, Jinger, we don't grow in the good times. We grow in the hard times. Yeah. I think that there's something beautiful in what you're saying in that there is power in gratitude, but it is not easy to be grateful in the hard times, but the things that, that are, are strongest in our lives, the things that make us stronger, that, that bring that power, are often the hard things, not the easy things. So, it really just all makes sense.
Well, the Bible talks about the sacrifice of praise, and, uh, it's, yeah, definitely a sacrifice. It's sometimes you have to do it sacrificially. It's not something you feel like doing, but you do it in obedience to God because there, I mean, I don't know how many scriptures there are in the Bible about gratitude and thanksgiving and giving thanks, but I'm sure there's several hundred. And, uh, I mean, like even Jesus, He said, "I thank You that You hear me," when He went to pray. And so we always need to fill our prayers full of thanksgiving. Yeah. Be thankful and say so. You know, we enter His gates with thanksgiving. We come into His courts with praise. You can't even really come into the presence of God with a grouchy, grumpy attitude. And it's so easy to complain. It's like, it's almost like if you don't purposely fill your life with things to be thankful for, you will complain. Mhm. We have to replace the bad things with good things so the bad things have no place to get into our life.
Well, let me ask you this then. What is the danger of complaining? Because sometimes we feel like we need a release and, you know, we're, we're just talking. What is the danger in, in that complaining?
Well, actually, in the Old Testament and in the New, it talks about an example of how the Israelites when they were going through the wilderness, they complained and murmured about the manna. They got tired of the manna. I mean, you know, who gets tired of your food being rained out of the sky every day? But it seems like our human flesh has no ability. I'm sure they were very thankful for that in the beginning, but it seems like no matter how good things are or how amazing they are, the flesh only has a short span of time that it can be grateful. Yeah. And it talks about how that they opened a door through their complaining for serpents to get into the camp and 23,000 of them died in one day. And then in the New Testament, it's in 1 Corinthians or 2 Corinthians. I think it's chapter 10. It, it goes back to that example and, and it actually says, "We're repeating this here and sharing this with you so that you might not fall into the same sin that they did." And so it is a sin, and it does open a door for the enemy, where being grateful closes the door to the enemy. Yeah, that's great. That is so helpful.
Okay, we've got, uh, one more question here. Sandy from California says, "I'm in a very difficult position right now. My 87-year-old mother-in-law has been living with us for 6 months. She's unable to live alone and needs supervision. This has taken over our lives. I'm trying to be grateful for the experience and whatever lesson God is trying to teach me, but we've had a difficult relationship, and I'm quite resentful sometimes. How can I have gratitude through this?"
Well, first of all, you know, I mean, I ended up having to take care of my parents who, my father sexually abused me, and my mother knew he was doing it and let him do it. And so, I understand it being hard to take care of somebody elderly, and my mother had some mental problems, and so that was made a double challenge, and she was also very needy, which, you know, that was hard. And so I get it. I understand. But taking care of your parents when they get older is actually one of the most powerful things that you can do. It's something that the Bible tells us to do. And it really says if you don't do it, you're no better than an infidel. It's very important to God that we take care of our parents, and, and even other people, extended family members that don't have anybody to take care of them. We also took care of my aunt who had no children. And so the way that you can do it is to do it unto the Lord. Don't look at it like, "I'm doing it for you." Yeah, that's good. You know, I mean, I, I never one time went to the nursing home to visit my mother that I wanted to go. And that may sound awful, but I'm just being truthful. I went because I knew it was the right thing to do. Yeah. And I think that we need a lot more in our day, the days we're living in. We need a lot more of people doing what's right because it's right. We've gotten way too far over into the, "Do I feel like it? Don't I feel like it? Is it fair?" You know, God, everything in life's not fair, but God is just. Yeah. And if she does this, and God understands, she can talk to God about how difficult it is, but do it unto the Lord. Yeah. And so the things to be grateful there are that God has given them what they need to be able to care for her, that He's there in the midst of this hard situation, that they'll, they'll see His goodness through it somehow, even if they don't understand it. It's a little bit, I, I love, and I know you do too, like, like the mystery of not knowing everything about what's happening and finding those little nuggets of gold to be thankful for is kind of like an adventure for me. I, I think it helps me to stop being so disgusted, so disgruntled about things when I make it a challenge to find the things to be thankful for. And I do that too. Like I feel like that any day that I can get through without complaining is a great success. I don't know how many of those I have, but I really like to do the same thing. I know the devil wants me to complain and murmur. And you know, just as a closing thought for her, she's sewing seed that she'll reap on later in her life. And none of us knows what kind of condition we'll be in when we're that age or how much help we may need. And so, but I really think, I really think the important thing is to just do it because you love God and because you know it's what He wants you to do. And that, that kind of takes all the bitterness out of it and makes it sweet. Yeah.
Thank you for joining me today on Enjoying Everyday Life. Today I want to talk to you about a very, very, very important subject, and that is the subject of being thankful. You know, I believe that thank you has a lot of power in it, and the more thankful we are to God and to other people in our lives who help us make our lives easier, I think the more thankful we are, the more powerful we are. The title of this message today is "Be Thankful and Say So." And that comes from a scripture, Psalm 100, verse 4: "Be thankful and say so." A lot of people might say, "Well, I am thankful." But you know, other people can't read your mind. They need to hear the words. And I believe it's very important that we all step up our thanking people and thanking God for all the good things that He does for us, you know.
You know, so often people want to know what the will of God is for their life. That's probably one of the biggest questions that people ask. "What is God's will for my life?" Well, of course, this is not God's entire will for your life, but 1 Thessalonians 5:18 says, "Give thanks in all circumstances." I drew a big circle around "all." "Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." So while you're looking for God's specific assignment for you, His general will for all of us is that we have a foundation in our life of being thankful all the time, in all things. The word "thanks" and "thanksgiving" appears in approximately 100 Bible verses, and we are told 73 times to give thanks. So, you know, I think if anything is in the Bible that often, it must be.
Be something very, very important. Be thankful and say so. I want you to get that down.
"Be thankful and say so" is the expression of our words that people need to hear. You know, so often we take God for granted. We take the things that He does for us for granted. We get so used to God being good to us that instead of continuing to thank Him for His goodness, we grouch and complain the first time something happens that is maybe a little bit even inconvenient for us.
And sometimes we can do the same thing with people. People are good to you and they do things for you or they meet needs that make your life easier and maybe you just don't say "thank you" often enough or "I appreciate you." Those are power words that lift up anybody. Be sure you begin to thank people more.
Thanking God is what many of these scriptures are about. But it's very important that we don't become so accustomed to the blessings of God that we take them for granted. Speaking words of gratitude has a powerful effect in the spiritual realm. Satan loves to hear us complain, murmur, grumble, and find fault. And you're going to see before the program's over today that actually complaining, according to the Bible, is sin. And you know, when I found that out several years ago, it really had an impact on my life that it's not just something I can just do and it doesn't have any effect. Complaining has a big effect in the spiritual realm and it opens the door for the enemy. I invite him into my life to cause me more and more trouble if I complain about maybe the little bit of trouble that I'm having right now.
Speaking words of gratitude has a powerful effect in the spiritual realm. Satan does not want us to be thankful. I want you to get a hold of that. Satan does not want us to be thankful. He wants us to murmur, grumble, find fault, and complain.
Now, God doesn't need us to thank Him. But to be honest, we need to thank Him. When we thank God for the things that He's done for us and we focus on those things, it keeps us from focusing on what we don't have or what God hasn't done. And there's way too much of that. Way too much of complaining about what God hasn't done and looking at what we don't have and what people don't do for us instead of looking at the things that God has done, has given us, what people are doing for us.
Are you focused on your blessings? Or are you focused on your problems? You know, whatever you focus on is what becomes bigger in your life. The more we focus on our problems, the bigger they seem to get. And to be honest, some of the things that we murmur and complain about are not even anything that major. If we would just get our mind off of them, they wouldn't even bother us at all.
Philippians 4:6 says, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in in every situation, not after the situation goes away, but in every situation, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your request to God." You know, it just so happens that right now I'm in the process of writing an entire book based on Philippians 4:6. I think that's one of the most important scriptures in the Bible. The first thing we should do when we have a problem is pray, ask God to get involved. There's so many problems that we have in our life that we can't do anything about. And worrying about them and becoming anxious is only going to make them seem bigger. It's not going to help them go away.
If we're not thankful for what we already have, why should God give us anything else? One time I was asking God for something and He whispered that in my heart. "Joyce, you're already complaining about what you do have, so why should I give you anything else to complain about?" Just think about it.
Now, not to insult you at all, but maybe you're a complainer. Maybe you're not, but maybe you are. Maybe you're the kind of person that is what I call high maintenance. It's hard to keep you happy. I can say that to you because at one time in my life, for many years of my life, I was that way. I wasn't very thankful, but I sure noticed everything that was wrong. And once again, the devil loves that. It opens the door for him in our lives.
In Luke 17:11-19, there's a great story. On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. As He entered a village, He was met by 10 lepers who stood at a distance. They lifted up their voices, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us." When He saw them, He said, "Go and show yourself to the priests." And as they went, they were cleansed, healed of leprosy as they did what Jesus told them to do.
Then one of them, one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, went back to Jesus, praising God with a loud voice. I'm glad that the guy got loud. You know, the devil doesn't like it when we get loud. I think about blind Bartimaeus and he cried out, "Jesus, have mercy on me!" and the people around him said, "Be quiet, don't bother the Master." And it says that he shouted all the more, "Jesus, have mercy on me!" I don't mind a good shout once in a while. And he fell on his face at Jesus' feet giving thanks and he was a Samaritan. That's important to to notice because Samaritans were were hated. The the Jews hated Samaritans so much that they wouldn't even go through Samaria. And so this this man would have been considered not even a believer, but he came back and gave thanks for what God had done for him.
Jesus answered, "Were not 10 cleansed? Where are the other nine?" So, He noticed that they didn't bother to give thanks. And I think when we don't bother to give thanks, that God also notices it. And it's not a good thing.
Remember, being thankful adds power to your life. Every time you thank God for something He's done in your life, it releases power in the spiritual realm and it weakens anything that the devil can do in your life. I know you might think, "Oh, it's just, you know, 'thank you' has that much power." Yes, "thank you" is full of power. If you're sincere and you mean it, "thank you" is full of power.
I've been on a real journey, especially this last year of my life, to try to be more thankful. And each morning when I pray, I thank God for many, sometimes the same things. But I'll thank God for my home, that I have a roof over my head, that I have food to eat, that I'm warm in the winter and cool in the summer, and I thank God for my family, my children, my husband. I thank God that I have clothes to wear. So many things that we take for granted, but if we didn't have them, we would certainly complain. It should not be easier to complain than it is to give thanks.
"Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" And He said to them, "Rise and go on your way. Your faith has made you well." So, thank you. When we say "thank you" to God, it must be an expression of our faith. We know that He has done something for us and we release our faith in Him by saying, "Thank you, God, for helping me in this situation."
Jesus noticed that the nine didn't come back. And you know what? If any one of us is not coming back and giving thanks to God for all the good things He does in our life, He notices that, too. I can't help but wonder what happened to the other nine. Can you think about that? I wonder what kind of door they opened in their life for the enemy by being unthankful.
You say, "Well, maybe they were thankful." Well, they didn't say so. And Psalm 100:4 says, "Be thankful and say so." And I'm hoping that those of you who are hearing this teaching today will realize that it's important for you to get your mouth open and start saying "thank you" to more and more people and saying "thank you" to God more and more often and that you will complain less and grumble less and find less fault. And I pray that since I'm teaching this today, that it will have an effect on me and it will cause me to also come up higher.
Even if you have problems right now, and I'm sure many of you do. I've got a couple things going on in my own life that I could certainly do without. But in the midst of them, I'm still giving thanks to God. And no matter how many problems you have right now, in the midst of them, you should still be giving thanks to God.
Even if you have a problem right now, take some time and think of the things that God provides all the time. Things such as peace, answered prayer, mercy, grace, the forgiveness of our sins, new beginnings, hope, right standing with Him through Jesus Christ. You know, we get all caught up in the material things that we don't have and we really should be thanking thinking about the spiritual blessings that we have. Just imagine your sins are forgiven and God has forgotten them and removed them as far as the east is from the west. And if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, your name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life and you are not going to go to hell. You are going to go to heaven and spend eternity with God. There's so many spiritual blessings that we could stay busy thanking God for. And if we did, we wouldn't notice the material things that we don't have.
So, no matter how many problems you have right now, find things that you can be thankful for. And I'm really encouraging you, strongly encouraging you. Every day of your life, be thankful and say so.
Paul never prayed for anyone's problems to go away. If you examine the prayers of Paul in the Bible, which there are many of them, especially they're listed in the epistles. Everything that he prayed for the people was something for their spirit. It was something for that would make them stronger spiritually. He prayed for them to know the height, the depth, the length, and the breadth of the love that God had for them. He prayed for them to know and choose and prize what was excellent, to abound in love. All things that would help them in the spiritual realm. And the only thing that he said about their problems was that he prayed that they would endure whatever came their way with good temper. In other words, no matter how many problems they had, he wanted them to keep a good attitude.
Let me ask you a question. Can you have a problem? Can you have a big problem and still keep a good attitude? I think it's very important that we all learn how to do that. I believe that once you reach that point, you are coming into higher levels of spiritual maturity and it's really, really important.
Do you give thanks more than you complain? Or do you complain more than you give thanks? I want to say that again. Do you give thanks more than you complain? Or do you complain more than you give thanks?
Maybe you've got a job that you're not particularly fond of. Maybe there's people that work at your place of employment that annoy you. And maybe you don't like your boss. And so you complain, complain, complain, complain. Anybody that'll listen, you complain. But you know, I bet there's people that would love to have your job because they don't have a job. And so, how about thanking God that you do have a job. And if you really want to work somewhere else, then go and look for something else, but be thankful while you're doing it. This is so important. I pray that you're getting this message today.
There's power in "thank you." In Paul's short letter to the Colossians, which was actually very short, I found five times where he told the people to remember to give thanks. And that's really what I'm doing today. I'm just reminding you. I'm reminding you to be thankful and to say so to the people in your life lives, to God, to Jesus for what He did for us.
1 Thessalonians 5:18 was a scripture that we read in the beginning that says that it's the will of God that we give thanks in all things. And verse 19, the verse right after that says, "Do not quench the Holy Spirit." The word "quench" means to to stop. You know, we want the Holy Spirit to work in our lives. We want Him to have free reign in our lives. We need the help of the Holy Spirit. But if I'm understanding this correctly, if I'm complaining all the time, that I'm quenching the Spirit and I'm preventing Him from helping me in my life.
I believe even our angels, the Bible says, they hearken to the word of God. When we're being thankful to God for what He's done for us, I think that the angels that are assigned to us can work more powerfully in our lives. But who knows, maybe when we complain, we're also giving up their help. Think about it. We complain, it quenches the Holy Spirit. It stops the the angels from working in our lives. Let me tell you something. We're giving up way too much just to voice our complaining.
Philippians 2:14 and 15. "Do everything, not some things. Do everything without grumbling or arguing, fault-f finding, and complaining." That's the amplified translation. "So that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a war in a warped and a crooked generation. Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky."
Oh, this scripture is so important because you know what He's saying? Get out in the world and don't complain. You know why? Because everybody is complaining these days. I don't know about you, but I am so tired of listening to people complain, complain, complain, complain. And the Bible says that we as believers in Christ should get out in public among the people and we should be thankful and grateful and then we will shine like stars in the midst of a warped and a crooked generation.
You know, you can be a good example to somebody just by being thankful. You never can tell. You may actually be able to lead somebody to Christ just by being thankful. Be a good example to people. Be grateful. If you're eating lunch at work with a lot of the other employees and everybody's sitting around and grumbling about something at the company, why don't you speak up and say, "Well, you know, everything is not perfect here, but I'm thankful that I have a job. There's a lot of people that don't have a job." Or, "Wow, ladies, what if you complain about your husband all the time? You know, I bet there's some lonely person that would be happy to take him off your hands."
One time I remember I was not happy about a couple of things that Dave was doing that irritated me. And God challenged me to get a piece of paper and make two lists. One, the things that Dave did that bothered me and the other list all the things that I could think of that I really liked about Dave. And you know what? I was pretty ashamed when I realized that the list of things that I liked about him was so long and there were only two or three things on the list that I didn't like. But because I was focusing on those things, it was really hurting my relationship with him. I wonder how many people end up getting divorces just because they focus on the one or two things that they don't like about somebody.
How about inconvenience? How how inconvenience can you be without complaining? Can you make it through an inconvenience when you have to wait on something? Can you be patient and still remain thankful? Complaining is a reaction to something that we don't like. And it's a natural reaction. We don't have to try to complain. It's just naturally going to happen. But if we're going to give thanks, we're going to have to do it on purpose. Retrain yourself. Every time you're tempted to complain, instead find something to be thankful for.
Life is filled with little annoyances. And if we can make it even through one whole day without complaining, I think it would be a major miracle. And as I said, complaining is sin. And the Israelites were brought out of Egypt and they headed toward the promised land. You might say when we're born again, we're brought out of a life of sin. Our sins are forgiven and we find all the promises of God. There's over 7,000 promises of God in the word of God. And we want those promises. We want to see them happen in our life. But very often we have to travel through the wilderness of our own soul first. And they traveled through a wilderness and they complained and complained and murmured and complained and found fault. And there's a scripture in Numbers 21 that says that snakes, serpents, got into the camp and bit 23,000 of them and they died just because of complaining. Well, I I liken that to Satan that when we murmur and complain, I think we open a door for him to get involved in our lives and there's no tellings how many people end up with a life that is just miserable because all they do is complain all the time.
Paul said in Philippians 4, "I have learned to be content whether I'm abased or abounding." And you know something, we can learn it. I can learn it. You can learn it. And that's what this is all about today.
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The mind actually is the battlefield. That's where we win or lose the war with Satan. He said all he gets to say today is mine. You start asking God to heal you and He will restore. He's the God of all comfort. And I am so grateful that I know how to call on God.
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