“The Power of A Grateful Heart!”

The Power of A Grateful Heart!

Oh, how beautiful it is to live with an attitude of gratitude! If we can maintain such a spirit, it will transform our whole perspective on life. We would thank God for each and every blessing. We will be grateful to God for life itself; for the world around us; for nature and beauty; for the love of family and friends; for health and well-being; for faith and the meaning of life it gives us; and for the opportunity to experience the Kingdom of God here and now. Oh, I tell you, the power of a grateful heart.

But the sad truth is that most of us aren’t grateful people. When it comes to having a spirit of gratefulness, we fall short. We are much better at grumbling and complaining than we are at giving thanks. Despite all the blessings sometimes, we’re anything but thankful. We’re often like the 9 lepers in [See Luke 17, NIV].  There we read of ten lepers who stood at a distance and cried out to Jesus as he was traveling along the border of Samaria and Galilee. The diseased-ridden lepers cried out, “Jesus, Master have pity on us.” And Jesus heard the lepers and said to them promptly, “Go show yourselves to the priest.” And [Luke 17:14-16, NIV] says, “And as the lepers went, they were cleansed. One of them when he saw he was healed came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him.” And in [verses 17-18] Jesus says to this one leper who returned. “Were not all ten cleansed?” he said. “Where are the other nine?

Jesus’ emotional response to the ingratitude of the nine lepers gives us a glimpse into the heart of God. Jesus was disappointed that only one person cared enough to express his gratitude.  The lepers came to Jesus with a desperate longing; he cured them and nine never came back to give thanks. So often we are just like the nine lepers, once we get what we want, we never come back. We take God’s goodness for granted. We receive great blessings yet often we don’t give God our gratitude even though [Psalm 103:2] says, “Blessed the Lord, O my soul and forget not all his blessings.”

Here in America, each of us, compared to the rest of the world are rich beyond our wildest dreams. We travel by airplane, drive nice cars, live in air-conditioned homes, and have all the electronics. We eat in nice restaurants, and we worship God in comfortable buildings. We each live a life of incredible ease and luxury and one would think that all these blessings would make us the most grateful people on earth. But often, this affluence makes us more discontented and ungrateful, because often the by-product of having so much is a desire for more. And it is very hard to be grateful when we cannot learn to be happy with what we already have.

Practice Gratefulness:

What we all should say is, “Lord, help me to have an “Attitude of Gratitude,” because God’s will for us is to be filled with joy and thanksgiving. His will is NOT for us to complain about life, to grumble about what we don’t have, to whine about our circumstances, or to compare how others may have something we don’t have. He wants us to face life with gratitude. Nothing beats serving the LORD out of a heart of gratitude and thanksgiving for all that He has done for us, and for His everlasting love toward us.

Listen, truth demands a response, and the Truth about God demands that we, the creatures, glorify Him as the Great Creator! When we don’t, we fail in the great purpose for which we were created. We have a choice to make. We can complain about the situation, focus on everything we lack, wallow in self-pity, feel victimized and blame others for our misfortunes; OR we can be grateful for what is going right in our lives, appreciate the good that is ours, and look for the lessons we can learn.

O Come, let us sing joy unto the Lord; Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods” [Psalms 95:1-3, NIV].

“Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations” [Psalms 100:4-5, NIV].

Pray With Me:

Lord, please forgive me for not being grateful enough. Overwhelm my heart with Your power, goodness, love, and glory, that my heart would default to praising You in every moment. I ask for grace to remain grateful for the rest of my life . . . starting from today. Forgive me for when I don’t thank You enough, for Who you are, for all that You do, for all that You’ve given. Help me to set my eyes and my heart on You afresh. Renew my spirit. This I ask in Jesus’s name. Amen.

Written By, Lou Yeboah
Executive Editor, Dr. Ruth Tanyi
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