Persecution Live

Those who are thankful for the good things that God has given them will take good care of those things, whether it be their mind, car, body, spouse, children, job, etc. Taking good care of the things which God has given us shows Him that those things mean something to us and we are thankful for them. Not that we ever should worship the things God gives us, but we should take good care of them.

All of these symptoms should not be found in our lives, but if they exist (and I doubt many of us are immune!), there is something we can do about it. Develop a thankful heart! So the next question is….

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This is an obvious sign of an unthankful heart. Greed is a sin that causes us to become unthankful for the things that God has blessed us with. When we become greedy, we are thinking about things we don’t have, rather than things we do have.

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God’s Word tells us that we have been created in the very image of God, and knit together by the hands of God in our mother’s womb, and when we see ourselves as failures, we are in turn being unthankful for the person that God has made us. If we see ourselves as ugly, then we are claiming that God’s creation (our bodies) are ugly. Would you walk upto God and dare tell Him that something He made was ugly? I should hope not! But that’s what we do everytime we look at ourselves in the mirror and see ourselves as ugly. The same is true with our minds and intelligence. Despite the vast amount of technology we have today, to create a computer processor chip that will do millions of transactions in mere seconds, yet weighs no more than a quarter, there’s nothing that man has created that will even come close to the complexity of the human brain. Far too often, we take lightly the wonderful and dynamic gift that God has given us when we consider ourselves dumb or less than brilliant! Each one of us were created in the very image of God, and gifted in many ways, and it is a crying shame when we refer to ourselves as anything less than downright amazing!

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In Matthew 18, we see a picture of the unthankful servant who was forgiven of a great debt, but could not forgive his fellow servant of a much smaller debt. If a person is bitter or hold things against others, then it shows us that they are unthankful for what God has done for them.

Matthew 18:32-35, “Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me: Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.”

If we don’t want to be called “O thou wicked servant” on judgment day, then it is a 100% necessity that we forgive those who have offended us. The Bible is even clear that if we don’t love one another (and bitterness is proof of hatred), then we are abiding in spiritual death:

1 John 3:14, “…He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.”

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People who are unthankful will naturally have negative personalities, find it easy to complain about little things, or easily become moody. Their minds aren’t deeply rooted and grounded in a positive or thankful pattern of thinking, therefore when something comes up that pushes their buttons, they quickly forget about the goodness that God has blessed them with, and begin to complain and grumble in their hearts. This brings about a negative/pessimistic personality or mood. This explains the Israelites when they would go about complaining, even after God has delivered them from the hands of their enemies. In Numbers, we are told of how the Israelites were grumbling over the manna that God was giving them every morning when they woke up, so finally God gave them meat alright… so much that they were vomiting it out of their noses!

Numbers 11:18-20, “And say thou unto the people, Sanctify yourselves against tomorrow, and ye shall eat flesh: for ye have wept in the ears of the LORD, saying, Who shall give us flesh to eat? for it was well with us in Egypt: therefore the LORD will give you flesh, and ye shall eat. Ye shall not eat one day, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days, nor twenty days; But even a whole month, until it come out at your nostrils, and it be loathsome unto you: because that ye have despised the LORD which is among you, and have wept before him, saying, Why came we forth out of Egypt?“

They were unthankful for what God hath done for them when He brought them out of Egypt, and complained about the food that He was miraculously providing for them. He even said that through complaining, they had despised the Lord their God!! As a result, He gave them all the meat they could handle until it was coming out of their noses and was loathsome unto them.

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An unthankful heart is found in somebody who doesn’t appreciate the things that God has given them. Each one of us have been given more than we’ll ever know, so there are no excuses for God’s children to be unthankful! Unthankfulness is looking at the negative, despite the positive.

God’s Word even tells us how people can be given over to homosexuality and all sorts of uncleanliness because they were unthankful:

Romans 1:21,26-27, “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened… For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.”

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A couple really neat stories in the Bible stand out to me when the subject of thankfulness is brought up. One is when Paul and Silas were cast into prison, but instead of grumbling… can anybody tell me what they were upto? Let’s see…

“And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them.” (Acts 16:25)

Now if you ask me, few of us have circumstances like Paul and Silas had to complain about. But instead of complaining, they lifted their hands to the Lord with thankful hearts and began to sing praises! Why? Because they took what Jesus said literally when He told them…

“Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.” (Matthew 5:11)

They were taking God’s Word seriously, and praising God despite the physical (here and now) circumstances… shouldn’t we be doing the same thing today when things turn black around us?

So what happened to Paul and Silas and their reservations at the local prison? Let’s find out…

“And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one’s bands were loosed.” (Acts 16:26)

Their praises during that time touched the very heart of God, and as a result, the very ground the prison was on shook with an earthquake and they were loosed!! All I can say is… WOW! I guess you could say that their singing out in praises in the face of despair touched the very heart of God! My question to you is, would God not be touched by our praises today? Would He not do the same thing for us today that He did for them?

Another powerful story of thankfulness is the story of Joseph. God gave him visions of his brothers bowing before him, but on the earthly plane he was sold into slavery. Did he once complain? Did he once turn his back on God? He was even offered sex by the wife of Potiphar, and turned his back on sin for the sake of doing what was right! So then what happened? She lied about him and had him threw into prison! Come now, how many of us are in such positions? This man was a beautiful man of God, putting His walk with God above everything in life, and yet he was sold into slavery, then cast into prison? If anybody has a place to grumble, I think it ought to be him! But he had his mind so much on the goodness and promises of God, that it didn’t even phase him! What happened? God promoted him to an extremely high position in the government, and was put in charge of the food (the #1 need of the land) during a famine!

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Let’s say that you had a grandson, and you went out and built him the best backyard playground in town. You spent thousands of dollars on it, and invested countless hours to put this together. When you’re all done, you walk your grandson into the back yard to show him to new surprise. He first screams with excitement and then he cries because he thinks of how wonderful of a grandpa he has, and gives you the biggest hug you’ve ever received. Then for the next month, he can’t stop playing in his new playground and continually thanks you up and down for such a wonderful gift. Wouldn’t that make you feel good inside for blessing him in such a way? You would probably want to run out and do it all over again, just because he loved it so much and was so thankful for everything you did.

Now consider if you went through all that work and spend all that money, only to have your grandson go jump on the swing a few times and leave, and act as if you haven’t invested a dime in it. Never once did he show any appreciation, or thankfulness for all you’ve done. Wouldn’t that make you feel awful? Wouldn’t that make it hard for you to continue blessing him in the future?

How do you think God feels, when He’s done so much for us (He made us, gave us such wonderful bodies and minds, then when we messed up, He sent His son to die for us, etc.), and then we go throughout the day not even stopping to think about all He’s done for us? We’re too busy taking our children to the baseball game, watching TV, and countless other things… that we don’t even stop to think about all God’s done for us. How do you think that makes God feel? Do you think He gets overwhelmed with joy, and can’t wait to send us more blessings? If you were in His position, would you feel that way? Wouldn’t you want your people to be thankful for the goodness and blessings you have showered upon them?

When we are thankful for the goodness of God in our lives, it touches the very heart of God and encourages Him to shower even more blessings upon us. A thankful heart is truly a floodgate to the blessings and goodness of God in our lives!

Psalms 37:4, “Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.”

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The Lord has shown me recently how important and vital a thankful heart is to our spiritual health. This sounds very elementary, but there is much to be learned here! This teaching was broken up into three parts because it is so long:

1. How God sees a thankful heart & Even when things fell apart

2. The seriousness of unthankfulness & Symptoms of an unthankful heart

3. How to become thankful

God has been prompting me to write this teaching for some time now, and now I know why! The Lord has revealed to me how a thankful heart can change the whole way you see life! It is a flood-gate opener to blessings, joy peace and all sorts of goodness. With thankful hearts, we can even touch the very heart of God, and King David even told us that when we approach God, enter into His gates with thankful hearts!

Psalms 100:4, “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.”

I mean it when I say that developing a thankful heart can revolutionize the quality and enjoyment of one’s life!

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Today I was driving down the road, and God said to me, “Do you know how Valentines Day is coming up?”

I said, “Yes Father, I know.”

He said, “Do you know how powerful and strong and passionate the relationship between a man and a woman can be?”

I said, “Yes!!!”

He said, “That’s the kind of relationship I want with my people!”

I had some love songs on in the car, including “The Power of Love”… one of my favorites! It was as if He said to me, “I want you to listen to those songs and sing them… not because of your love for another person, but because of your love for me, and my love for you.”

I did… and tears starting coming down my face!

Then Un-chained Melody came on… another one of my favorites… and I wept almost the whole way home as I thought of my Father’s great love for me!!

During my time in the Bible last night, the Lord also reminded me of a Bible verse that shows us clearly that our relationship with God is supposed to be a deep and passionate love relationship! Take a look at Ephesians 5:25-32…

“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.”

You know how passionate a deep love relationship between a man and a woman can be? They would do ANYTHING for each other… they would even DIE for each other… their love is so strong that NOTHING can keep them apart! That kind of a love relationship doesn’t begin to describe how deep and powerful and passionate our love relationship with God is supposed to be!

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