Thank You Lord

Glory be to God in the highest. It’s been an amazing year of sharing the word of God through the lenses of our individual experiences walking with God. It takes humility to receive the spirit of revelation and wisdom from the Lord. God has been good to us. As we progress in life we need to be careful to show off a thankful attitude/ posture. We must be thankful to God, to those who help us and to our parents for the many things God does for us. When you are not thankful and grateful you develop four problems.

1. The problem of forgetfulness. You cease to remember how you came to where you are. You do not remember circumstances others similar to you are dealing with and how God has delivered you from similar things. You tend to forget all these realities and this makes you unthankful.

2. The problem of deception. You become deceived. You tend to think of yourself as the author and engineer of your blessings. A man can have nothing except it be given to Him from above. If God does not give you something you cannot have it.

3. You develop a problem of pride. People who are unthankful, forgetful and deceived are always proud. Pride is the insidious killer of Christianity. It drives out and drowns out the word of God and what you receive from God. Scripture says that except you become like a little child you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. This means that you need to become as simple minded as a child to enable you get saved or enter salvation. A child may be nothing or nobody and they believe and listen and live freely without the nuances or biases of life. When they are nurtured or schooled with certain specific dictates and doctrines then they become proud as they grow. Children are typically not bothered or concerns about who they are or what they have achieved. They just flow and hence why God says unless you become like that you cannot be saved or have the baptism of the Holy Spirit and speak in tongues.

“He called a child to him, stood him among them, and said, “Yes! I tell you that unless you change and become like little children, you won’t even enter the Kingdom of Heaven!”
‭‭Mattityahu (Matthew)‬ ‭18‬:‭2‬-‭3‬ ‭CJB‬‬

You cannot enter the ministry unless you are like a child. When God instructs, you need simple childlike behavior in order to obey. People may even wonder whether you are okay or sane. Children rarely ever think about the future. The just glide through life until they reach the age of consciousness to the dictates of this world. Recently I saw a lady jokingly interview her two little nieces (obviously she didn’t expect much from this little exercise) who were busy jumping around watching television and playing. She was asking them how the depreciation of the Ghana cedi has affected them and how they are coping in such hard times. Their response: they just looked at her blankly for a moment and went right back to skipping around the room and watching their TV show, clearly unbothered about what she had asked and how it affected them.

You suffer from pride when you are unthankful. Pride is a very terrible disease. Children rarely think about the future. Except you become like a child you cannot receive the provision that God has and his promise of a great future. It is only when you are in a place of dependency that you are humble enough to receive. Once you have the mindset of independence, you block out the channels or sources of reception and only then do you decide to fend for your own self. You cannot even have visions and dreams that are Holy Spirit inspired because you need to be like a child to receive such things. That is why the Bible says, you cannot enter the kingdom of God except you become like a child. As soon as we become proud, we are shut off and cut off from God’s greatest blessings.

4. You suffer from rebellion when you are unthankful. You become rebellious toward the Lord. Remember Saul, the king of Israel?

“Sh’mu’el said, “Does Adonai take as much pleasure in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying what Adonai says? Surely obeying is better than sacrifice, and heeding orders than the fat of rams. “For rebellion is like the sin of sorcery, stubbornness like the crime of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of Adonai, he too has rejected you as king.””
‭‭Sh’mu’el Alef (1 Samuel)‬ ‭15‬:‭22‬-‭23‬ ‭CJB‬‬

So then, who are we supposed to be thankful towards:

Obviously we need to be thankful to God Almighty for the things we do not notice because without them we wouldn’t be able to live . Eg.Water, the air we breathe and even our very lives.

Our parents; you usually appreciate their value when they are already gone. We realize that the training and the discipline we suffered in their hands modules us into who we become in this life.

We don’t appreciate churches. We deem them as institutions that just collect money from poor people to buy expensive things for themselves. You never understand the value of something until it’s taken away from you. If you want to know if something is valuable, imagine if it was gone forever.

God wants us not to be forgetful, deceived and proud. One of the greatest things in this life is for God to humble us. May we learn to humble ourselves on our own accord and for our own good. I pray that we become Christians who are filled with gratitude and are thankful.

With love, Esinam.