Gratefulness

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1 Kings 17:6 A Crazy Way To Provide

The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook. 1 Kings 17:6

Eating and drinking is something that everyone needs to do to survive. As a result of needing to do both, people strive hard to figure out how they can have food to eat. Most find jobs to work to be able to provide the money needed to get the food needed.

Doing this can be a challenge for some since their tastebuds are limited. Many want only certain types of food and will not eat anything else.

Elijah had gone to the Kerith Ravine, as God told him to do, and the ravens fed him bread and meat every morning and evening and he drank water from the brook.

Everyone has various types of needs in their life. The most basic needs are food, shelter and clothing. The world desires to have only the best of each of these. Anything less than the best and one is no longer doing great and is a failure. They do not look at what is available right before them and will often reject what is given.

Believers will pray for God to provide for their needs on a regular basis. God, being a God who keeps His promises, will often answer those prayers in the best way for the individual. Many will reject what God is providing because it is not the best in the eyes of the world. Provision is often found in providing what is needed, not always the best, greatest and latest items.

Very few people would be grateful for food provided by ravens on a daily basis. They would fear it would be bad food and complain about it. Yet, that may be just how God provides what is needed. Believers need to see how God may provide and accept it.

You have some needs that you seek God constantly to provide for. Be open to the leading of the Holy Spirit as to how God will provide for those needs.

Do not allow yourself to be greedy or specific minded as the world is and miss what God is providing. If God has provided you with food, shelter and clothing in some crazy way, such as by ravens, do not reject it, but be grateful He is meeting your needs. God may provide in an unusual way.

Today I pray that you will know Jesus as your Lord and Savior; that you will see God’s hand of provision in your life; that you will trust God’s provision; that you will be grateful for God’s provision; and that you will not complain as to how God provides.

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Leviticus 3:6 An Offering Of Peace And Fellowship

If you offer an animal from the flock as a fellowship offering to the Lord, you are to offer a male or female without defect. Leviticus 3:6

During times of war, there is often one side that will offer something for peace to regain fellowship between the warring parties. These are often peace treaties to stop the war.

Once the war is stopped, often one will send some type of offering to the other in gratefulness for the accomplished peace. This occurs on national levels as well as with individuals between neighbors, friends and even family members.

God told the people that if they were to bring an animal for a fellowship or peace offering to Him, it was to be a male or female without defect.

While a person does not believe in Jesus and follow God, there is a war going on. At the moment he chooses to repent of his sins and believe in Jesus, there begins a fellowship or time of peace between him and God.

Although physical animal sacrifices have been done away with when Jesus died upon the cross, the believer can offer a sacrifice of fellowship to God. Being grateful for what Jesus did for him in bringing him into fellowship with God, he can offer himself as a peace offering to God.

The work that Jesus did on the cross has made the believer pure and holy without defect. Giving of his entire life, mind, body and soul, to the work of God is an offering of fellowship to the Father. It is found in spending time talking and listening to the Father, in doing the work that He has him do, in living as He commands, and in building His kingdom here on this earth.

This is the minimum fellowship offering that a believer can give to God for what He has done.

Jesus has brought about peace and fellowship between you and the Father. There is nothing greater than that fellowship that you could ever receive or desire. Let God know about your joy and gratefulness in what Jesus did by offering yourself as a fellowship offering up to Him.

Allow your sinful self to die on the altar and live to do His work. Break the fellowship with the world of sin and death and spend time in fellowship with God for eternity. Let God give you true life with Him.

Today I pray that you will know Jesus as your Lord and Savior; that you will have full fellowship with God; that you will know the peace with God you have in Jesus; that you will offer your life as a fellowship offering up to God; and that you will allow Jesus to make you pure and holy as He is.

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Leviticus 2:4 Giving The Best For Thankfulness

If you bring a grain offering baked in an oven, it is to consist of the finest flour: either thick loaves made without yeast and with olive oil mixed in or thin loaves made without yeast and brushed with olive oil. Leviticus 2:4

Showing that one is thankful is not always a common practice for many people. And when they do show that they are thankful, many will just barely do it. The bare minimum thanks is what is often given. Those who are truly thankful will go above and beyond with their thanks, sparing no expense or challenges.

God gives some directions on giving a grain offering, a thanks offering, that is baked in an oven using the finest flour with olive oil on or in it.

Life is not always easy and has many challenges or troubles along the way. Those troubles are the oven of life. Things get heated up and feel as though they are burning a person alive.

Despite the heat and burning, God still provides abundantly for the believer. Sins are forgiven and life is provided for that will extend into eternity.

Thanks to God is to be given, even during troubling times. This thanks is not to be just a small thank you to God, but the best from deep down in the heart. It is gratefulness that was borne from a time of trouble, but also with trust in God and seeing what God is doing through the trouble.

Along with the giving thanks there was to be oil mixed in. This is allowing the Holy Spirit to guide the words and speak even through the believer to God what the heart is trying to say.

Rather than complaining about all the troubles, the believer should be grateful for what God has done and give the best thanks ever.

No matter what troubles you may be going through, take a step back and look at what God has blessed you with. Realize how God has provided for you in many different ways.

Dig down deep into your heart and offer the greatest thanksgiving to God for what He has done. Allow the Holy Spirit to minister to your heart and strengthen it in the times of trouble, giving you the words to thank God.

What are you able to thank God for today? What sacrifice of thanks can you give God today?

Today I pray that you will know Jesus as your Lord and Savior; that you will see God hand at work in your life; that you will see God’s hand of provision in your life; that you will give God a sacrifice of thanks continually; and that you will give your best to thank God.

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Exodus 20:17 Do Not Covet Anything

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. Exodus 20:17

Everywhere a person goes he will usually see someone with something that he does not have. Or he will hear of people talking about things that they have that he does not have. Then he will see and hear advertisements stating that he needs all of these things.

Desires to have all these different things will rise in his heart and mind. Then disappoint will set in when he cannot have these things.

God is giving the core basics of how the Israelites are to live. One of these are that they are not to covet anything of their neighbors.

Coveting is a term that is not commonly used but is seen and pushed nearly everywhere. No matter where a person goes, or what he watches or listens to, there are ads telling him that there is something that he is missing out on that everyone else has.

Often the intense desire for what someone else has will create discontentment, ungratefulness, bitterness and making bad choices in one’s heart and life. One will become discontent and ungrateful for what God has blessed him with. He may become bitter because he cannot have certain things. Then he may make bad choices to get what he does not have.

Believers are to not live like the world and get caught up in the trap of coveting what others have. Rather than coveting those things, one should be glad that God has allowed their neighbor to have those things. Then their focus should be on what God has blessed them with and allowing those things to be used by God to meet all of their neighbor’s needs.

You will have things in your life that your neighbor does not have. Your neighbor will also have things in his life that you do not have.

Do not allow the deceitfulness of greed to enter your heart and mind to desire what others have. Stand back and take a look at how God has already blessed you richly and met all of your needs according to His grace and power.

God promised to meet all of your needs. Do not covet what God has not given you, but trust in His provision for your needs.

Today I pray that you will know Jesus as your Lord and Savior; that you will see the blessings God has given you; that you will be grateful for what God has given you; that God will strengthen you to remove any coveting desire you have in your heart; and that you will praise God for what your neighbor has been blessed with.

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Genesis 40:23 Forgetting Those Who Helped

The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph; he forgot him. Genesis 40:23

Nearly every time something is extremely important to a person, he will remember it. People will often do what it takes to remember something important, leaving notes, setting alarms, etc.

Other times there are things that are not considered to be very important. Many get caught up in the moment, forgetting what was needed. The one who is supposed to remember will forget it, often at the detriment of other people.

Sometimes this forgetting can be a sign of selfishness, looking only to one’s own self’s interests and forgetting others.

Joseph had correctly interpreted a dream the cupbearer had. He had asked the cupbearer to remember him in prison. The cupbearer forgot about Joseph when his dream came true.

No one makes it completely through this life without the help of someone else. Nearly all the time every person needs at least some help from someone else. At times that help is extremely urgent.

The first thing a person should do when receiving help is giving thanks. The next thing one should do is return the help if possible and it is needed.

Although it does take some time and effort to return some help, it can show respect, gratitude and the love of God.

Every believer starts with having been helped by Jesus to remove his sins and give life. With this new life, he also begins to remember Jesus and pay it forward the help he had received.

No person will ever be able to give the amount of help Jesus did, but everyone is able to help in some way. Instead of forgetting those who have helped, one should remember them and seek to find ways to help them back.

Think about all of the ways different people have helped you in your past. Think about how much Jesus has helped you. Ask yourself if you have forgotten how those people have helped you.

Do not allow yourself to take that help for granted and forget them. Ask them and ask God how you may be able to return the help. At a minimum you can bring them before God in prayer. Ask God to touch their lives, bless them and meet their needs.

As you do these things, God will open doors for you to return help to others as they need it. Don’t forget those who helped you.

Today I pray that you will know Jesus as your Lord and Savior; that you will be grateful for and remember those who have helped you; that God will open your eyes to how you can help others; and that you will not forget all that God has done for you.