Being Thankful is Biblical

Psalm 107
¹ Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good: his love endures forever.
1 Chronicles 29:13
¹³ Now, our God, we give you thanks, and praise your glorious name.
Psalm 95:2-3
² Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song.
³ For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods.
Psalm 107:8-9
⁸ Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for mankind,
⁹ for he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things.
Psalm 100:4
⁴ Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.
1 Corinthians 15:57
⁵⁷ But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Psalm 106 1-2
¹ Praise the Lord.^[a] Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.² Who can proclaim the mighty acts of the Lord or fully declare his praise?
Psalm 69:30
³⁰ I will praise God’s name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving.
Philippians 4:6-7
⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Psalm 9:1
¹ I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.
1 Chronicles 16:34
³⁴ Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.
2 Corinthians 4:15-16
¹⁵ All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.
¹⁶ Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
Jeremiah 30:19
¹⁹ From them will come songs of thanksgiving and the sound of rejoicing.
I will add to their numbers, and they will not be decreased;
I will bring them honor, and they will not be disdained.
1 Corinthians 9:11
¹¹ If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you?
Psalm 28:7
⁷ The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me.
My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him.
Jonah 2:9⁹ But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you.
What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord.’”
Colossians 3:15
¹⁵ Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.
Ephesians 5:19-20¹⁹ speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, ²⁰ always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Psalm 7:17¹⁷ I will give thanks to the Lord because of his righteousness; I will sing the praises of the name of the Lord Most High.
Colossians 4:2
² Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.
Revelation 11:17
¹⁷ saying: “We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, the One who is and who was, because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign.
Psalm 92^[a]
1 It is good to praise the LORD and make music to your name, O Most High,
1 Thessalonians 5:18
¹⁸ give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Light Brings Clarity
John 8:12
¹² When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
John 3:19-21
¹⁹ This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰ Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. ²¹ But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
John 1:5
⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome^[a] it.
1 John 1:7
⁷ But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all^[a] sin.
Psalm 18:28
²⁸ You, Lord, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light.
Micah 7:8
⁸ Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise.
Though I sit in darkness,  the Lord will be my light.

A few days ago my husband and I were visiting our daughter.  She had asked her dad to come by and help her with a few handyman things that she needed to have done. So I decided to ride with him.

I figured after they finished working we could all visit or watch a movie or something.  I grabbed my iPad and some paperwork that I needed to work on as I was walking out of the door.  When we got there I decided to park at her dining room table to set up a little mini workstation for myself.  It was perfect!

I remember commenting to my husband just how comfortable her dining room chairs were. I could sit there and work for hours.

I was in my happy spot.  I was doing my thing with no interruptions and they were doing what they needed to do.  At one point after I had been sitting there working for quite some time, my daughter walked in and flipped on the light switch to the light fixture hanging over her dining room table.

It was an eye-opener for me because when we arrived it must have been some time after 4:00 PM.  It was still very light outside. However, after sitting there for quite some time working it had started to get dark outside.  I was so busy working that it never dawned on me that I could be seeing much better or that it was time for more lighting. When she flipped on the light switch I could not believe how much difference it made, and it was because I had not realized that it was darker than I thought.  I also think that it was because it was not pitch black outside.  Because of the time of day that it was, it had been such a gradual process that it was not noticeable until light was shed on it.

I immediately thought of how many people are living in darkness, and they are not aware of how different their lives could actually be.  Many don’t even know that they are living in darkness.   When we surrender our lives to God and His plan for our lives, the light switch comes on immediately, because He is our Light.

The same thing happened in our lives that happened to me at my daughter’s dining room table.  We start to see things clearer.  We get clarity. God sheds His light on areas that we need to clean up and on habits, and people that we need to drop who have possibly been a bad influence in our lives.

His light then starts to give us direction and guidance. So much happens when we make this change that would have never been revealed if we chose to keep living and working in darkness.  My recommendation to you today is to run to the Light and not to darkness.

If you are already living a life in the light, my recommendation to you is to try and bring as many to the Light as possible.  Help them to see what they are missing and how different their lives could be if they chose to live in the light.  I also recommend that you share your story of how God’s redeeming love brought you from darkness to light.

Remember when you choose the Light you choose life, eternal life.   It will not get any better than that, so let’s help others do the same.