Christian Living

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In Everything Give Thanks!

April 2, 2003
By Rick L King

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

We are told to give thanks in everything. Why does God tell us to do that? He has a very good reason. He does say that it is the will of God that we do this. Let’s look at why.

1 Peter 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:

The devil is out to get us. One of the ways that he accomplishes this is when we do not give thanks. The devil only gets to us through our lack of knowledge or us allowing him to gain entrance. He does attack, but we know that the devil is a lair, so anything he says is not true. It only becomes true as we accept it as true and either keep thinking on his words or act upon them.

Isaiah 54:17 says:
No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD.

This does not say that weapons will not be formed, yet it does say that they are not to prosper if we condemn them. When the weapons are formed and the darts come at us, our first tendency is to look at the problem or attack. That is our first mistake. This took our eyes of Jesus. When our eyes are off of Jesus we find we do not walk in faith. Faith, the shield of faith, is what is required to quench the darts of the enemy (Ephesians 6:16). Once our shield is down, we get hit with the darts. Our shield is our defense. Faith is our defense. It takes faith to please God, and it takes faith to receive from God, so the devil desires to do anything that will get our shield of faith down. The attacks are not so much the problem as what we do with the attacks. The attacks are actually just temptations to believe a lie and call it true. They are designed to take us out of faith, which will always kill steal and destroy in our lives.

When we start thanking God in the midst of the attack we are able to keep our faith, our shield of defense, so the darts will bounce off. Thanking God will close the doors for the enemy’s weapons to prosper. Remember also that we enter into His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Thanksgiving and praise takes us into God’s presence. When in God’s presence we are given revelation knowledge of how to fight the enemy. This keeps us in an offense mode. When we are just in our presence we become powerless to fight. This always puts us in a defensive mode. We only take ground on the offense, not the defense. It is not by might or power but by my Spirit saith the Lord (Zech 4:6). Until we learn that our power and ability is fruitless against the enemy and that the only way to win is to draw near to God through thanksgiving and praise, we will never experience the victory that God desires for us to walk in. Thanksgiving and praise are some of the best weapons that God has given us. We may not feel like it at times, but feelings often lie. Our walk is not based in feelings, it is based in what God said will work. May we all learn to thank and praise God for everything whether good or seemingly bad. We will find new strength, joy, and peace as we do.



Copyright © 2007
By: Rick L. King
No portion of this may be reproduced or used without written permission from the author.
Please contact me at [email protected] if you have a need for this writing. Thank You.

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