May 13

TODAY'S BIBLE VERSE

Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 5:20

​Memorize this Verse: (Cover the verse text and using just the first letters of each word try to recite the entire passage.)
20. G T A F A T U G A T F I T N O O L J C\

Notes on the verse:

“Giving thanks always for all things”: Believers’ thankfulness is for who God is and for what He has done through His Son, their Savior and Lord.

A medieval legend tells of two angels sent to earth by the Lord to gather the prayers of the saints. One was to gather the petitions and the other the thanksgivings. The angel responsible for petitions was not able to carry them back to heaven in one load, while the angel responsible for thanksgivings carried his back in one hand. The sad fact is that God’s children are more prone to ask than to thank.

William Hendriksen commented that “when a person prays without thanksgiving he has clipped the wings of prayer so that it cannot rise.” When are we to be thankful? Always! To be thankful always is to recognize God’s control of our lives in every detail as He seeks to conform us to the image of His Son. To be thankless is to disregard God’s control, Christ’s lordship and the Holy Spirit’s filling. Nothing must grieve the Holy Spirit so much as the believer who does not give thanks.

There are three attitudes of thankfulness. The first is easy and that is to thank God for the things He has blessed us with, which is right as the bible instructs us to be thankful for the things we are given. The second, is that of being grateful for the hope of blessing and victory yet to come. The first level is after the fact; the second is in anticipation of the fact, which is more difficult than thanking Him afterward. Thanking God before a blessing is more difficult than thanking Him afterward and requires more faith and spiritual maturity. This second level is where faith and hope begin because it involves the unseen and the yet inexperienced.

The third level is thanking God in the midst of the battle, while we are still undergoing trouble or testing, and even when it looks like we are failing or being overwhelmed.

If we can thank God only when things are going well, our thankfulness is on the bottom rung of faithfulness. If we can thank Him in anticipation of what He will do in the future, we show more spiritual maturity. But to thank God while we are in the midst of pain, trails, or persecution shows a level of maturity that few Christians seem to know but that our heavenly Father wants all His children to have.

Notice that even our thanksgiving has to be done in the name of Jesus. This says that we should thank God for all things good and bad. We must assume from that, that sometimes the things we call bad are really a way to help us grow in the Lord.

Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to [his] purpose.”

Notice also, that the thanks is to the Father.

The greatest gift we can give to God is a thankful heart, because all we can give to Him is simply grateful recognition that all we have is from Him. We give Him thanks for all things because He has given us all things and because giving thanks in everything “is God’s will … in Christ Jesus” (1 Thess. 5:18).

To glorify God is to thank Him no matter how much we may hurt, disappointed or fail to understand. The Spirit filled Christian is “overflowing through many thanksgivings to God” and continually gives thanks to Him “for His indescribable gift” (2 Cor. 9:12, 15). The only person who can genuinely give thanks for all things is the humble person, the person who knows he deserves nothing and who therefore gives thanks even for the smallest things. Lack of thankfulness comes from pride.

If it were not for Christ, it would be foolish to be thankful for everything, because apart from Him all things do not turn out for good. But because we are in Christ, the good things and the bad things all have a part in God’s conforming us to the image of His Son.

TODAY'S BIBLE READING

May 13
Today's Bible Reading Plan selections can be found below. If you don't have a Bible with you, just click the references to read each passage online:

Old Testament
1 Samuel 29-31  —  8.0 minutes
Psalms 106:24-48  —  4.0 minutes

New Testament
Mark 13:14-31  —  4.0 minutes
2 Corinthians 11:16-33  —  4.0 minutes

Total Average Read Time — 20.0 minutes