Check Your Gratitude (If You Want to Be Free!)

It's almost Thanksgiving. And the whole world will begin to rattle off a litany of things they are grateful for. But what happens after the turkey is eaten and everyone goes their separate ways? Does your gratitude extend beyond November? Are you feeling blessed beyond the holiday season? Reality check: We've been so blinded by these events that we could not see there is no such things as a season of giving, because God called us to give every day not only during certain times. That's why we need the Word and I thank God for the teaching we get from our leader and the teaching God provided through his Word.

Lately, at the Body of Christ, Chief Apostle H.C. Gunn has been revealing to us and instructing us on what God's mind is about the holidays, as far as the way we have been celebrating them. We have made these holidays as idols and curses in our lives. We don't celebrate Jesus, God, or family, truly. Because if they really mattered to us, we would acknowledge them all year long but we don't.

How often do we reflect on how blessed we are beside the holidays or when we are going through a trial? How often do we think of Jesus and what he endured so we could be saved? How often do we think of God and Heaven and his plan of Salvation beyond times like Easter?

God does not want our gratitude and kindness and willingness to be wrapped up in a gift box and only used during the holiday season or when it's convenient for us (for instance, saying thank you but not meaning it, only because you want to ensure that person will give to you again). So, we have made these days to be pointless and aimless and dishonorable to God.

Christmas is not about Jesus's birth to us. We have made it a time to cloak our lack of giving love and care year-round by buying gifts and overdoing things. We have been worshipping trees, decorations, bows, boxes, wrapping paper, and our children instead of God. If Christmas was truly about our Savior, then we would honor his purpose, his teachings, and his will every day. If we were truly as thankful as we pretend to be during Thanksgiving, then we would be willing to stand up and testify about the goodness and grace God has shown us every day, as well as the care and kindness that those faithfully around us have continued to show to us when we needed it most.

Chief Apostle Gunn has helped to open our eyes to a truth that has always been right before us in the Word of God, but we were too blind to see it on our own: Our worry and our self-imposed cycles of despair and disappointment often come from a lack of gratitude and a desire to be self-serving. Because of that worry we create, we began to fear and fear makes it easier to sin, and the cycle continues.

Think about it: If we were truly feeling blessed and grateful for what we do have in our lives and what God has already done, we would easily see that God takes care of his people and has kept people in place to take care of us on this earth. So, why worry? He said he would never leave us or forsake us, but maybe the reason we are so scared to face life is that we are the ones who have forsaken God. Maybe deep down on the inside we know that we have separated ourselves from God by our actions, by our disobedience, and our lack of appreciation, so we don't expect to be covered and helped.

Gratitude is a lifeline. We often pray for God to rescue us from situation to situation. But perhaps if we took more time to truly give thanks to him, and rehearse and reflect on all he has done for us since our first breath, our eyes would be opened enough where we could see the rope God has left for us to climb out of the pit or mess we are in. If we did have a heart of gratitude, we would know without a shadow of a doubt that he would not leave us hanging because we wouldn't forget the many breakthroughs, miracles, healings, provisions, upliftments, and transformations he has already placed in our lives.

Chief Apostle Gunn asked at service the other day: Why won't you tell it? Why aren't you free enough to share what has been done for you? The questions were like earthquakes. Shaking up and disrupting our selfish perspectives of who we think we are. If we really loved God and loved the people of God, who have been there for us without question, how can we not be willing to open our mouth and express thanks and share with others the many blessings and helps we have received through God and the people he sent in our lives?

He went on to ask: Who do you esteem higher than yourself? It seems we care more about how we feel, how we look, what people think about us, than about freely expressing the goodness of God and the people of God. Being shy is not an excuse. We are never shy enough to refuse a blessing or a gift. So, we can't be too shy to be grateful for them.

We have become so self-centered that we only see what we do as good. What God does is never enough and what people do toward us will never be enough. We have adopted a sense of self-entitlement. We believe that the help we receive is owed to us. We believe that what God gives us is required. And we are sadly mistaken. As Chief Apostle Gunn has taught us, the only thing we deserve is hell, because without God's grace, without the cross of Christ, we are nothing but sorry sinners who have broken the law, broken our vows, and broken God's heart.

Ephesians 2:8-9: For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.

1 Thessalonians 5:18: In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

Let's check our gratitude, and while we're at it, check our attitude, because they are tied together and because the Bible tells us that we will always be out of the will of God if we are ungrateful.

Until next time ....

Apostle Kanya

Be sure to listen to Awake, Awake ... Be Sober: https://www.thebodyofchristinc.com/listen-in?wix-music-track-id=5123340292325376&wix-music-comp-id=comp-jyc7a8to