Thankfulness: With It Honor, Without It Shame!

Thankfulness: With It Honor, Without It Shame!                     Capt Kelly Durant

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

2. My wife and I lived near a blind institute in Santa Cruz, Bolivia and one day we decided to go in and see if we could sing some songs to them and they said yes. We did not know what to expect when we went back to go in, I think we expected to see sad faces and introverted people. Our hope was to cheer them up with a few songs and Words of Jesus from doing a devotional.

To our surprise it was not how we imagined at all! These blind folks were quite a lively group and they were so appreciative of our simple songs they begged us to come back again soon. To our amazement they memorized all the words to the songs on the first visit!  So we started visiting them twice a month for the time we lived there doing devotions, singing, and talking with them. What a great time!

We got to know each of them personally and they made us feel very appreciated. They were some of the most thankful people we had ever worked with! Imagine yourself being blind right now? I think most of us would expect one to be angry with God and the world, but instead these folks were thankful to Him and to all those who helped them in their live-in institute. We learned many things from them, like how they can distinguish colors by feeling the heat of the material. I am thankful God allowed our lives to cross paths teaching us thankfulness. In the Bible we know David went blind, Samson was blinded, but later we read how Jesus healed the blind! We need to be thankful for our sight! Even our oldest son has a vision problem of retinitis pigmentosa and my wife and I have done courses on how to lead the blind.

3. Have you ever wondered why it appears that it takes some major loss, some big event in our lives, to make us humble and reconnected to God as we should be? Why do we as human beings have to be so stubborn, so ungrateful, so complainy that we ignore being thankful for our blessings? Why can’t we just show others & God gratitude no matter the conditions? In the Bible great men like David and Samson went through prideful abusive stages until God let them be humiliated by their own wrongful actions which were a product of not being thankful for what they already had desiring more than what they needed not listening to God.

Let me warn you, life is long and hard and all that is going to happen to you is either going to make you or break you! How you get remolded all depends on your attitude, faith, and thankfulness (or lack thereof!) You and I can either praise God for all the good you have had, or you can blame everybody and God for how bad things are! If you don’t have it as good as you think you should maybe God is allowing it that way for a reason. What’s the lesson you need to learn?

Not every person in the blind institute was a happy soul. I recall one man who was sharp tongued and bitter and he would always spoil the party with a negative comment. He would stay in his room and only come out to say that he didn’t care for God because God let him down. No one in the institute wanted him nearby anyway; they always told us to just ignore him. And how could anyone welcome an ugly complainy attitude when everyone is thankful and having a good time?

4. Simple things can make a person happy when there has been a loss. Let’s take for example some of the folks in jails. Some of them use to have hundreds of thousands of dollars defrauding the system, stealing, or selling drugs, but suddenly they become thankful to afford enough for a little transistor radio! Thankfulness is all about the perspective and when there is nothing, all little things and God suddenly are esteemed with their deserving value.   

I will share my take on how to be thankful in life, I believe in the scorched earth policy. In the military this means that when you go through a territory you get rid of everything, such as shelters and weapons so that the enemy can’t use them against you for a future attack.

If you live your life as scorched earth, then you will not hold onto anything or any person, you forsake all that you have as Jesus commanded. In life you will suddenly become thankful when all that exists is a barren empty space where only God and the inspiring things He allows from day to day fill it up. I am thankful for even a smile, in this desert of dry humanity!

5. Christians have a better chance at being thankful than other people, because after all, the assumption is, they will obey and practice the Good Book they hold onto to. In the verse of today, “In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.“ We conclude this means being thankful for the good and even thankful for when things are not so good! In everything!

It is easy to praise God for the good, to praise him when times are good, but it is hard to praise him when times are hard, but we can do it if we chose to.  Romans 14:6 He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks.

Basically if you eat or don’t eat, have your needs met or don’t, we owe thanks to God. This is a discipline that is hard to achieve, but if you always pray and let thankfulness over-ride your own feelings of disappointment or anger you can reach this level of maturity. How many of you can say you are content in whatever state you are in, with abundance, or in just barely making it?

6. Here is something to contemplate: most of the time we equate thankfulness with the material such as being thankful for your food, clothing , home, car, etc. but what about being thankful for the spiritual things? Are you thankful for your teachers, pastors/Captains and divinely inspired books and hymns that inspire one’s spirit through this mysterious journey we call life?

Thank God for the knowledge of Him, because life without the spiritual things would make life be very mundane, boring, and frustrating a dead endless cycle of meaningless activities. Without the knowledge of God, without the concepts of praise, thankfulness, and joy (coming through the Holy Spirit) we would just be living an enslaving torturous death here and now and then and hereafter!

Psalm 30:4 Sing unto the Lord, O ye saints of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness. As Christians we get energized, inspired, and uplifted by learning about God’s Words of life, by praising Him, and by giving Him thanks. Psalm 100:4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.

7. And most of all we can thank God for the forgiveness of our sins through the sacrifice of Jesus, the perfect lamb of God! I cannot imagine living a life of slavery trying to be perfect by observing the old Sanhedrin Law. What a frustration to never quite make it, to never feel like God would ever be fully thankful for your sacrifices for Him!

What a business of rituals and traditions that do not erase sins! Could anyone ever be thankful for a life as the Greek figure Sisyphus going up and down with your heavy load, never accomplishing enough to be good or holy enough? Jesus sacrifice on the cross should invoke the maximum of gratitude from every human being! Think about thankfulness, most of us associate it usually over something, over a gift, over something done that seemed impossible. Before Jesus there were the miracles done through Moses, there was the promise to Abraham; there was the glory and beauty of God manifested in so many victories, but the Hebrew people betrayed God and became unthankful despite their blessings.

But after Jesus’ death and resurrection all humanity was faced with the fact that we owe an entire life of thankfulness to God! Through Jesus we get an undeserved gift of forgiveness and eternal life!

8. It is sad that many Christians throughout the world share mega amounts of resources and man hours to help millions of needy people in many ways but the reality is few ever come to thank God in the church, or thank those who helped them! Think about the institute where my wife and I went, almost none of their family members would visit them and express thanks to the staff.

Even in the Salvation Army shelter here, where 250 people can sleep in a room and shower with no cost being without a home, do you think gratitude is shown? No, little gratitude is shown as only about 25 come to any of the Sunday services!

And whenever anyone is on the subject of thankfulness almost everyone is reminded of the 10 lepers that were healed but only 1 came back to give thanks Jesus. I suppose anyone of us should be content with 10% of the people being thankful, but what a disappointment! The reality is this: forever this one leper, a condemned nobody, has the honor of God for his thankfulness! But the 9 are shamed eternally for a lack of returning to God His deserved praise! I want to be the one, and you?

9. Let’s be thankful for how God works in our lives and does miracles we may not even be aware of protecting us from car crashes, and innumerous dangers! I am thankful as well for the Holy Spirit that keeps me upbeat and encouraged! “In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you”.

The alternative to living without gratitude for the spiritual and the physical is living only with your own spirit prone to mistakes. Thank God that He protects us from being a victim to the spirits of the evil people out in the community as well.

Every morning I thank Him! Psalm 100: 4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. 5 For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.