Thankfulness

(image from freedigitalphotos.net)

Glory to God!

It is always exciting when one sees the unity of the Spirit within the church as people bring words, impressions, pictures, scriptures and revelation from God that fit together perfectly with the sermon (see 1 Cor 14:26). The Lord is speaking to us about true worship and we once again looked at the worship cycle where worship begins with God's revelation and the believer responds with repentance, responding in action, and remaining in Christ to reflect Him.

Richard showed us that the true worshipper's response to who God is and what He does should be a heart of gratitude. Thankfulness glorifies God (2 Cor 4:15), is at the heart of worship (Rev 11:6,7), is God's will for us (1 Thess 5:18), is the means to supernatural peace (Phil 4:6,7), is the means to overcome the enemy (2 Chr 20:21,22), is the means to contentment (Phil 4:4-12) and is the fruit of humility (Heb 12:28). Gratitude is the worshipper's response to the Unseen Real and is not dependent on the temporary. The believer can be thankful in every circumstance because his or her gratitude is based on who God is and what He does!

"Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, his love endures forever" 1 Chr 16:34

Looking at the Sermon on the Mount we saw how the beatitudes (supreme blessing) are based on belonging to Christ and His Kingdom (Matt 5:3-12) despite the temporary, earthly struggles we may face. For this reason, the believer can be thankful in every circumstance, having received every spiritual blessing in Christ (1 Thess 5:18; Eph 1:3; 2:6,7)! We also looked at what corrupts gratitude and saw that familiarity, pride, envy, and focusing on the temporary and negative things destroy a heart of gratitude.

In order to develop a heart of gratitude, Richard showed us that it begins with receiving revelaton of who God is and what He has freely given us, then repenting of ingratitude, then responding to God by giving thanks in every circumstance, then remaining in the reality of God's abundant grace causing us to overflow with thankfulness that reflects God's goodness and grace (2 Cor 4:15).

We praise God for His revelation to us and give thanks to Him for He is good and His love endures forever!

 Upcoming events

21.09. Bengt Wedemalm will be our guest at KLF
28.09. Francois Botes will be our guest at KLF
21.12. Christmas Musical