Prayers of Thanksgiving

Devote yourselves to prayer; stay alert in it with thanksgiving.

Colossians 4:2

I imagine that Paul understood how easily we humans get distracted from prayer by the way he connected it to intention and a thankful attitude. The practical advice he offers here is bigger than we may think. It's much harder to get distracted from connecting with God when we are aware of the many reasons He deserves our thanks.This same concept is the one the Spirit has led me to during times when I don't know what to say. God loves to connect with us and He loves a thankful heart; imagine how much it thrills Him to see the two together. 

Thanksgiving keeps us humble and wards off an attitude of entitlement. It also fights bitterness and unforgiveness and replaces anxiety with peace. These things are huge for our physical health. They are also sign of a spiritually and emotionally healthy person. It also helps us relationally; no one likes to be around a negative person who is never satisfied.  But most importantly, it pleases our God, and as a parent, I can see why. Whenever my kids have an attitude of entitlement or ungratefulness, I press pause on addressing their wants because their emotional and spiritual maturity are far more important long term. 

Prayer causes us to pause and connect with God. It touches both the words of affirmation and quality time aspects of His love language as we reach out to pursue Him. It also prepares our hearts for hearing what He has to say. There is no such thing as a healthy relationship, enjoyed by both parties, without communication and appreciation. 

Be thankful and pray. Start somewhere, but keep it open and ongoing. As you begin to talk to God, You'll find thankfulness overflowing from your heart. 

What's Truly Important

And I pray this: that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment, so that you can determine what really matters and can be pure and blameless in the day of Christ. Philippians 1:9-10

What strikes me about this verse is all the petty things we Christians get caught up in, those things that prove to be distractions from the goal He has called us toward. Think about it, we get caught up in everything from political debates to boycotts that prove us more nit picky than gracious. We overlook issues like feeding and clothing the needy to fight over who gets whose way. We become dividers instead of uniters. And in doing so, those who need to see Jesus don't; they see hate, pride and mean spiritedness. 

I'm just as guilty. I have publicly expressed my own opinion in such ways that sounded rude, unloving and judgmental. I didn't understand others and it was obvious that I didn't want to. I thought my opinion was a necessary sign of my faith, but it was just a hindrance.

Beloved, It's not wrong for us to get involved in things going on around us. In fact, we need to connect with others, we need to be the hands and feet of Jesus and we need to express good passions in godly ways. Important issues deserve our attention, but not everything should be an issue. Our opinions just aren't as necessary as we like to think. 

There are plenty of opportunities for us to get sucked in to petty things. While we're busy being distracted from what really matters, we wind up doing the opposite of what we're called to do. 

Therefore, need Jesus' perspective on every matter, and to get it we need to lean in close to Him. We simply cannot be fruitful apart from the vine. This is where we find that loving others becomes more important than finding their flaws, and that is where we have the most impact. 

The Promise of Change

For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of heifer sprinkling those who are defiled, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of the Messiah, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works to serve the living God? Hebrews 9:13-14

Animal sacrifices of the old testament were quite limited in terms of restoration and redemption. The blood of animals could only atone for so much sin. Not to mention, they didn't provide for change inside the one who sinned. Therefore, sacrifices had to take place regularly, even as much as daily in some cases. Think about how often you sin and imagine having to lay your best possessions on the altar that often. At the rate of which I sin, I would be homeless and broke. I would have nothing left to give before my life really began. The worst part is that I would still be who I once was.

The pure and unblemished blood of Jesus was and is enough to cover every sin forever. The blood of Jesus is so perfect that it has also proven capable of bringing about change in any and every person who truly surrenders their heart to Him. And yet part of the body of Christ has yet to experience mindset changes and only looks forward to heaven after this life. I say this in love: Our control issues are revealing our unbelief and they're keeping us on milk instead of the good stuff. They are keeping us from enjoying the here and now as was intended.

With this gracious new covenant, we don't just get to go to heaven when we die. We get to see the kingdom of God come on Earth, now, as it is in heaven. But we have to be all in, holding nothing back. We have to exercise faith in this covenant, even more now than in the last one. God doesn't ask us to be perfect people; He asks us to give ourselves to Him in full trust that He will do what is right.

Thankfully for us all, we serve a God who favors our commitment and trust over our own abilities. Do you fully trust Him? Do your actions and reactions in life align with your answer? These are all questions we should keep asking ourselves continually, because the human heart easily strays.

Barriers to Gratitude

The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God!” Psalm 50:23

Speaking of gratitude, have you ever noticed how much more thankful a humble person is than a prideful one? Humility helps a heart see clearly all that they have...even the tiniest of things.  The heart swells with gratitude. But pride makes a heart feel entitled, and there is no gratitude from a heart that feels it deserves, thus is owed. It's a miserable place to be. 

Gratitude not only shows up in our attitude, but it also sparks close communion with God. I have noticed this in my own life. The more humble I am, the more thankful I become and the better I hear the Holy Spirit. And it becomes a sweet, joy-filled cycle. The more I commune with God, the more humbled and thankful I become. Honestly, I have never known a greater joy than this. It beats any idea of happiness I ever entertained. 

This is a key place for every heart to bookmark, stop and examine itself closely. No heart of flesh is perfect. Many ugly things hide in the crevices. The good news is that we can choose to be humble and thankful. We can choose our position on all matters; It's a God-given right. But it would be prideful to suggest that we can choose and adopt His ways totally on our own. We have to ask for help, but we also have to be willing to take gigantic steps of faith when called upon. 

Therefore, this is the point at which I ask you to partner with me in examining your heart for pride as I examine mine. It has to be a lifelong process though. This isn't about competing and comparing, but working as a community to encourage one another to grow closer to God by honoring Him, by recognizing that He is perfect in all of His ways. His ways are higher than ours, more than our human minds can comprehend. And He promises to do right by us. He is faithful. He is good. And He is worthy of our gratitude. 

The Spirit's Training

But solid food is for the mature-- for those whose senses have been trained to distinguish between good and evil. Hebrews 5:14

Many of us have these ideas of what we expect from someone who is spiritually mature, but I wonder how often those expectations align with God's word. This verse tells us that spiritual maturity is ultimately about the development of our spiritual senses, providing us with the ability to distinguish good from evil and the real truth from all the lies. And this being the case, this isn't something we can learn in isolation. Of course, the Holy Spirit alone can teach us everything effectively, but community is the ground upon which God matures us, the place where teaching becomes training. 

Training goes one step farther than mere teaching and adds practical application to the mix. It's more than the mere teaching of information. Training offers opportunities to practice what we know. If we don't practice what we know, our knowledge is useless. In this case, we must practice using our spiritual senses, such as discernment and understanding. These senses are ones that can only be utilized with an attitude of teachability, humility and vulnerability. In other words, we must keep our hearts open since it is not with human eyes that we see spiritual matters. 

This isn't something we can do on our own. It's crucial that we connect with the Lord to examine everything at a deeper level. Since the flesh sees with a superficial sight, our natural tendency is to see one another as enemies and harden our hearts in an effort to be strong. But spiritual training teaches us to look deeper. It is then that we learn that we're all on the same side with one common enemy. We learn that real strength lies in an attitude of vulnerability and tenderness because it is then that God's strength works most abundantly. Hard heartedness only desensitizes the spirit's senses and refuses the very help we need. Lean in to Jesus with an open heart. 

The Starting Line

Therefore, be imitators of God, as dearly loved children. And walk in love, as the Messiah also loved us and gave Himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God. Ephesians 5:1-2

The first sentence here really struck me as profound. Yes, we're called to imitate our Creator, but notice the stipulation that we're to do it as the loved children of God we are. That means we aren't asked to do it with our own ability, but with the ability given to us supernaturally when we accept the love God has for us individually. This is an important step if we're going to do it the right way, His way. It's been my experience that we cannot imitate God without believing Him.  If we don't take God at His every word, we're incapable of following in His footsteps. 

There is something precious about having God's love poured into you. His love, when it is taken at face value, is like CPR to the soul. Without acceptance of this love He has spoken over you and me, our spirits function like an oxygen-deprived body. And we live in defeat because of it. We can't truly love others or accept love from them without doing this with God first. His love is foundational to each of our purposes on Earth. His love will bring us to our knees in adoration of Him. 

None of us are in any condition to love our neighbor or our enemy until we let God's love fill us first. Until then, we're handicapped both emotionally and spiritually. Other people can't help us and we can't heal ourselves- there are no shortcuts. We must we willing to receive from God before we can give to others, therefore, the starting line consists of people who are so humble and desperate that they hold high their empty, wide-open hands to Him to receive what only He gives. No one passes "Go" until this crucial step is complete. Only God's perfect, unconditional and enduring love can break us free from our destructive hearts. Until we're truly free, we can't even begin the race. 

Freedom To Think Like Christ

We demolish arguments and every high-minded thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. 

2 Corinthians 10:4-5

Do you believe God more than the thoughts that enter your mind? This is a good question for each of us to ask ourselves if we're carrying the label of "Christian". For if we say we serve Christ, yet will not allow His truth to change our minds, our words are just a meaningless vapor. We cannot serve Him without full surrender; Our surrender is the best gift we can give Him. Believing God goes hand-in-hand with surrendering and it is a requirement for all true Christ-followers. But in all honesty, it took me forever to realize that.

"Now without faith it is impossible to please God..." Hebrews 11:6

I have had more unhealthy thought patterns than I can count. Do you know how God revealed them to me, how He got around my walled-in mind? He led me to scripture that exposed it. When He did, I heard myself say, " No matter what God says here, I am going to believe what I believe." I heard myself blatantly refuse to believe God.  I realized that I was so tied to my thoughts that I held them to the same level of His truth. I was guilty of withholding my thought patterns from the God I had claimed to believe in. And that bothered me. It didn't change overnight, but little-by-liitle, as I surrendered my thoughts, I began to think like a new person. 

It's not just me. We all have a tendency to put our thoughts in front of the truths of God. We have this idea that if we think it, it must be true. But our thoughts are nowhere near truth in comparison to God's. Those thoughts we continually hold up as truth regardless of what God says are called strongholds. They give us the illusion that we're in control, when instead they hold us in bondage. They keep us from growing and being more like Christ.

Our minds are the hardest things to surrender. This doesn't mean we're called to stop using our brains, but to test everything we think against God's Word. It means God's truth reigns in our minds over any untruthful thought we have.  But it's a conscious and consistent requirement on our parts. Our minds can slip and fall into any ol' mess. We must continually make the choice to believe Him above anything or anyone else. It's the path to true freedom. Pursue God with endless surrender and He will set you free.