Traits OF Thankful Christian

Can you imagine if you were in Jonah’s situation? I mean, you hear it as a Bible story, but try to imagine what it would be like to be swallowed by a huge fish floating around in the acid of his stomach. And worse than that, to be alive and awake floating around in there. And Jonah, in chapter 2, kind of gets his act together, and this is what he says. And what was your prayer, Jonah? I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord. Here is Jonah in the middle of an acid-filled stomach of some giant monster of the sea, saying, thank you, Lord.

You say he’s, that’s not faith, that’s stupidity. No, thank you, Lord, thank you. And you know something? God liked that prayer so much, he poked that big fish and it vomited out Jonah and didn’t just vomit him out, it vomited him on the place he was supposed to be. Here was a man who thanked God in the midst of the belly of a great sea monster. Incredible. God honoured it. Now, you never had it that way, did you? You read Hebrews chapter 11 about all those people who thanked God in the midst of those terrible trials.

And then you hear the writer of Hebrews say, you haven’t had it so bad. You haven’t suffered unto blood yet, have you? In Acts chapter 5, the early church is being terribly persecuted, and it says in Acts 5.40, they took them and they beat them, and they beat them. And after they had beaten them, they said, don’t preach anymore. And they went out of there, and they thanked God that they were counted worthy to suffer for his name. They were thankful right in the middle of the beatings. And then you find Paul and Silas in the 16th chapter of Acts, and their feet are stretched as far as they could be and locked in stocks and the muscles are taught and they’re in unbelievable pain.

And what are they doing? Singing thanks and praise to God. You come to Philippians 1 and people are persecuting Paul when he’s a prisoner, and he looks to the time when he’s going to die, and his heart is just filled with thanksgiving. Listen, it’s indicative of your character, how you give thanks because you worship God in connection with your heart. And if the only time you can worship God and thank God is after the blessing, then you’re down on the first level. If, however, you can move a little bit higher, and you can thank God before the battle even begins, in anticipation of the victory he’s going to give, that’s better.

But if you can thank God in the midst of the pain, in the midst of the trial, then you’ve reached the level of maturity that very few Christians really know. Joni Erickson, who’s been coming to our church for the last eight months or so, who’s written a wonderful book that tells about her life and her accident which paralysed her body, makes the statement, giving thanks is not a matter of feeling thankful, it’s a matter of obedience. You see, you don’t always have to feel thankful, but it’s a matter of thanksgiving. It’s recognition that my life and my circumstances and my destiny is in God’s sovereign hand, you see, and that everything that happens is working to the purpose of conforming me to Jesus Christ.

And it’ll have a profound effect on your attitude. You want to know something? It’ll have a profound effect on your attitude. So when do you give thanks? Always. For what? For what? Giving thanks always for what? All things. You say for all things, you mean for everything, even stuff that’s troublesome and difficult. Sure, count it all joy when you fall into diverse trials. Why? Because that’s the way God perfects you. I’m not going to give you a big long list. I have one written down here, I won’t take the time to do it, but I listed about 40 things that the Bible specifically says you’re to be thankful for.

And they’re not just individual things, they’re categories in which you could be thankful for a hundred different things within that category. We’re to be thankful for everything. For everything, for everything. There’s no limit to it. Just the fullness of all the things that God has done for us, all of his attributes are listed, all of the things he’s done. We’re to be thankful. Do you know the Bible tells us to be thankful for all men? For all people, it tells us to be thankful for all things, to be thankful to God for Christ, for our salvation, for the Holy Spirit, for everything we have.

To be thankful in the midst of difficulty, as well as in the midst of prosperity. To be thankful for all things. Now let me tell you something. There’s only one kind of person who can be thankful for everything, and that’s a humble person. That’s right, that’s a humble person. You say, what do you mean by that? Just this. Listen, a humble person knows he doesn’t deserve anything, right? So the smallest thing for him is a cause of thanksgiving. If you have a problem in your life being thankful, the problem is not a lack of thanksgiving, that’s the symptom.

The problem is pride. You’re saying, God, I just can’t be thankful because I think I’m not getting what I deserve. See? But if you know you deserve nothing, if you see yourself as a sinner for whom nothing is really deserved, then for anything that God would give you, there could be nothing but thanks. See? It’s really a pride problem. A thankful person always has a humble heart. Thank you for joining us in this video. Be strong and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com.

Goodbye, and may your faith always lead the way. [tr:trw].