GRATITUDE
UNLEASHES JOY
BREAD
33 Then
the trees of the forest will sing, they will sing for joy before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth. 34 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures
forever. 1 Chronicles 16:33-34 (NIV)
12 Be
joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Romans 12:12 (NIV)
16 Be
joyful always; 17 pray
continually; 18 give
thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (NIV)
Sing
and make music in your heart to the Lord, 20 always giving thanks to God the Father for everything,
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians
5:19-20 (NIV)
15 Let
the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were
called to peace. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you
teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns
and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, whether
in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God
the Father through him. Colossians
3:15-17 (NIV)
2 Devote
yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. Colossians 4:2 (NIV)
3 I
thank my God every time I remember you. 4 In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with
joy 5 because
of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 being confident of this, that
he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of
Christ Jesus. Philippians 1:3-6 (NIV)
10 David
praised the Lord in the presence
of the whole assembly, saying, “Praise be to you, O Lord, God of our father Israel, from everlasting to
everlasting. 11 Yours,
O Lord, is the greatness and the
power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven
and earth is yours. Yours, O Lord,
is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. 12 Wealth and honor come from
you; you are the ruler of all things. In your hands are strength and power to
exalt and give strength to all. 13 Now, our God, we give you thanks, and praise your
glorious name.” 1 Chronicles 29:10-13
(NIV)
21 At
that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you
have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little
children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.” Luke 10:21 (NIV)
BUTTER
“Make gratitude your attitude of habit — there’s no other way to make joy your life. Every little day just has to be just a little bit better: Small things done consistently, consistently make the biggest change.” Ann Voskamp
“Enjoy the little
things for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” Robert
Brault
“God delights in
His covenant and so we are sure He will not turn back from it. It is the joy of
His holy heart. He delights to do His people good. To pass over transgression,
iniquity, and sin is the recreation of Jehovah. Did you ever hear God singing?
It is extraordinary that the Divine One would solace Himself with song, yet a
prophet has thus revealed the Lord to us: ‘The Lord thy God in the midst of
thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest
in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.’ (Zephaniah 3:17). The
covenant is the heart of God written out in the blood of Jesus.” Charles
Spurgeon
“Joy
is the serious business of heaven.” C. S. Lewis
“To be grateful for the good things that happen in our
lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives-the good as well as the
bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well
as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections-that requires hard
spiritual work. Still, we are only truly grateful people when we can say thank
you to all that has brought us to the present moment. As long as we keep
dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and
those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a
gift of God to be grateful for. Let's
not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and
trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God.” Henri
Nouwen
“Joy is the realest reality, the fullest life, and joy is always given, never grasped. God gives gifts and I give thanks and I unwrap the gift given: joy. Gratitude
for the seemingly insignificant- a seed- this plants the giant miracle. The
miracle of eucharisto. Do
not disdain the small. The whole of the life - even the hard - is made up of
the minute parts, and if I miss the infinitesimals, I miss the whole...There is
a way to live the big of giving thanks in all things. It is this: to give
thanks in this one small thing. The moments will add up.” Ann
Voskamp
“We all know the value of joy.
It alone is the proof that what we have really satisfies the heart. Just this makes gladness such a mighty
element in the Christian character:
there is no proof of the reality of God’s love and the blessing He
bestows, which men so soon feel the force of, as when the joy of God overcomes
all the trials of life. And for the
Christian’s own welfare, joy is no less indispensable: the joy of the Lord is his strength;
confidence, and courage, and patience finds their inspiration in joy. With a heart full of joy no work can weary,
and no burden can depress; God Himself is strength and song.” Andrew Murray
“Gratitude unlocks
the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns
denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a
meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.
Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision
for tomorrow.” Melody Beattie
“Life is a gift to
be grateful for and not a property to cling to.
A nonpossessive life is a free life. But such freedom is only possible
when we have a deep sense of belonging. To whom then do we belong? We belong to
God, and the God to whom we belong has sent us into the world to proclaim in
his Name that all of creation is created in and by love and calls us to
gratitude and joy. That is what the ‘detached’ life is all about. It is a life
in which we are free to offer praise and thanksgiving.” Henri
Nouwen
“Gratitude makes even a temporal blessing a taste of
heaven.”
William Romaine
HEART SAVOR
- · A grateful heart is a joyful heart.
- · Gratitude unleashes joy. I am to be grateful in all circumstances.
- · A joyful heart is a contented heart.
