By: Norm Rasmussen

Short Video

I realize what I'm about to share is quite "blunt", and some may even feel it lacks "sensitivity", and if so, please forgive me.  I feel God wants this writing to zero in on one key element of "Thanksgiving" that can sometimes get dangerously overlooked, so please ask the Lord to quicken to you what He would have you get out of this writing, and trust that He WILL -- fair enough?

Conversely, if you want to see joy and peace and faith (trust) in God diminish in your life, simply walk in ongoing thanklessness.

Demonstrating to God OFTEN that we are thankful for what we have … rather than what we don’t have, or maybe have lost, can be the difference between motivating God to increase His blessings upon us, or withholding them.  It’s that critical of an issue, dear one.

Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name. (Psalms 100:4 NAS)

(Click on the link above highlighted in yellow, to understand that thanksgiving and praise (rejoicing) are weapons that go hand in hand.)

Elementary in moving God to shine His favor - His blessing - in your life is to show Him respect.  Show Him honor.  God is no different than any other ruler king.  He delights to be honored.  If you want to get on the bad side of an earthly king, say your supervisor or the police officer, dishonor him or her.  Why should we think any differently regarding the King of Kings?  The wisest thing we can do is honor King Jesus. 

Obeying King Jesus honors Him, but constantly having an attitude of being thankful ... no matter what your lot in life happens to be at any given time ... showers the sovereign heavenly King like little else can do.  Being of an ever thankful spirit demonstrates to Him your trust that He is all powerful to change your situation in the drop of a hat.  It demonstrates to Him that you will trust Him to work out your difficult situation into ultimate good, because He's a god of compassion and mercy and delights in doing the impossible. 

Every major painful situation we go through in life may well be a trial God has designed for us - usually to test us.  A thankful person constantly stays tune to God and inquires: "What am I to learn through this painful situation?"  There is almost always at least one thing God wants to teach us in a trial that is for our eternal good.  A thankless person rarely asks God that question, but rather just grows angry inside for God allowing them the pain they are going through without learning a thing from it, which then usually puts a wedge between them and God rather than maintains closeness with Him ... depending on the length and intensity of the pain.

A thankless person seldom demonstrates any real faith in God that produces answers to prayer.  A thankless person seldom has a testimony to share of how God performed a miracle in their situation.  A thankless person usually can't be content with what they have -- constantly secretly desiring more.  There's nothing wrong with wanting more (in many cases, anyway), but when a person refuses to count their blessings in what God has all ready given them, what motivates the King to want to give them much more?  A thankless person tends to be a complainer -- always remaining a bit bitter about the past over one thing or the other.  A thankless person tends to be a "Why God?" person.  "Why God did you let that little child die at the age of three months?  Why God do you let so many people starve?  Why do you allow the sex-trade industry to use those poor innocent children as sex slaves?"  Why must so many innocent people die in war?  Etc., etc., etc.  The "Why Gods" of a thankless individual become endless in this evil world ... whereas a thankful person stops trying to constantly stay focused in on the "Why Gods" and asks God what they can personally do to help stop the evil in some way in accordance with His will for their lives.

Please don't miss this important insight.  Many times God allows trials to come into a Christian's life to ultimately teach them the wisdom of being thankful when trials come their way.  That can be the sole purpose of the trial. Some trials never get lifted until that Christian starts thanking God in the pain they are in.  Many trials are stopped almost immediately when an individual starts thanking God in that trial ... and yes, FOR that trial.  Many potential trials Satan would like to initiate against a Christian never are executed against a Christian to begin with, simply because God knows that individual is not going to move off into being thankless no matter how painful that trial may have become.  Being ever thankful can be a weapon far greater than what we can realize.  We have everything to gain and nothing to lose by adopting the daily and hourly discipline of being thankful. 

God reminds us that suffering in the life of a Christian is working for their eternal good, IF they constantly demonstrate to God their thankfulness in those trials.  The first two scripture references below sets the stage for the th scripture reference to have a fuller impact:

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

... Giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, - Ephesians 5:20 NKJV  

For it is better, if God should will it so, that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong.  - 1 Peter 3:17 NAS

My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, - James 1:2

Therefore we do not lose heart.  Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.  For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.  For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.  - 2 Cor. 4:16-18 NKJV

We are to especially thank God in every trial we are in; we are to thank Him for the actual trial ... because if we remain thankful to God through every trial, most likely the trial will pass more quickly, and it is working for us an eternal weight of glory!

I believe a great possibility exists in that we can disqualify ourselves in standing confidently on the above 2 Cor. 4:16-18 scripture passages if we bypass the importance of maintaining a thankful attitude toward God.  You may make it to heaven, but there may well be some loss of rewards once you get there for being thankless when you should have been thankful. 

If you want to stay on the good side of God as a Christian ... having a thankful attitude ALL the time is the wisest thing a person can do.

Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.  - Hebrews 13:15 (NKJV)

How often?  CONTINUALLY!  It’s that critically important.

The most beneficial praise we can offer God CONTINUALLY is demonstrating our determination to let thanksgiving be the final word in any matter...the first and final word in every frustrating, discouraging, troubling, fearful situation we find ourselves in.

To help try to let it sink in, I repeat myself:  God is known to withhold His blessings and favor from thankless people.  Do you need some Biblical proof of what being thankless can motivate God to DO?   Let’s delve into the issue by first going to 1 Corinthians 10:10-11: 

… Nor murmur, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer.  Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for OUR admonition, on whom the ends of the ages have come.

God took special pains to preserve those “examples” for us recorded in the Old Testament so individual born again Christians today - the Church – the Body of Christ – could profit by them by not making the wrong decisions that certain Jews made.

God kept multitudes of Jews from entering into the promise land; in fact many died there in the wilderness.  He kept them in the wilderness for 40 years because, firstly, they grew thankless  and constantly began murmuring and complaining – failing to realize they were setting themselves up big-time to have God’s blessing removed off their lives! 

The second reason they were not allowed to go into the promise land was because of fear.  Twelve spies were sent into the promise land to scout it out first.  Only two - Joshua and Caleb - gave an encouraging report.  They were filled with faith; faith in God to help them overcome whatever obstacles stood in the way (mainly tall, mean giants).  The other 10 gave a negative, fearful report. I believe the reason those 10 other spies saw the giants in the promise land as something to greatly fear rather than be able to destroy through the help of God was because earlier ... thanklessness that led them to constantly grumble and complain against their leaders and ultimately God was the reason they had NO FAITH IN GOD to inherit their promise land. 

If you want to be stripped of faith when you may need it the most (and then be controlled - gripped by fear instead [oftentimes subtle fear in many cases]) ... keep being thankless and find things to constantly grumble and complain about - which includes constantly finding and speaking negative about the Body of Christ at large, about leaders in the Body of Christ in your local church fellowship, civil and law enforcement authorities, and about the leaders of your nation.  (We may have good reason to not speak well of our leaders, but are we doing what 1 Timothy 2:1-4 commands Christians do regarding those leaders?  If we aren't ... we may never be granted the best God has waiting for us.) 

I'll also take the occasion to warn you about constantly speaking negative about Israel.  God commands us to PRAY for the peace of the people of Israel, and if they ever needed peace in that country, they surely could use some presently!  I primarily pray they submit their wills to the Prince of peace - Jesus Christ; that's my constant prayer, because every Israeli needs to be born again just like every other sinner before they die, or they will never experience peace after that, no matter how much prayer is offered on their behalf.

It is said that from the time the Jews left Egypt, it would have taken them about 11 days to reach the promise land if they would have been allowed by God to steadily keep moving.   Yet it would seem that there were many that weren't of a right attitude from God's perspective to inherit the promise land.  You can read about it for yourself in Numbers, chapter 14, in the Old Testament.  Here is the main thrust of what God had to say about them:

"How long shall I bear with this evil congregation who murmur against Me?  I have heard the murmurings which the children of Israel murmur against Me.  Say to them, 'As I live,' says the Lord, 'just as you have spoken in My hearing, so I will do to you: 'The carcasses of you who have murmured against Me shall fall in this wilderness, all of you who were numbered, according to your entire number, from twenty years old and above.  'Except for Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun, you shall by no means enter the land which I swore I would make you dwell in.  But your little ones, whom you said would be victims, I will bring in, and they shall know the land which you have despised.  'But as for you, your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness."  - Numbers 14:27-33 NKJV

Let's move quickly to the battle between good and evil that humanity finds itself in.  There is very little Satan loves more than for Christians to begin operating in thanklessness.  Operating in ongoing thanklessness opens up doors of opportunity for him.  All sin, when not properly dealt with in accordance with 1 John 1:9, gives Satan greater opportunity to hinder our relationship with God to one degree or another, and if thanklessness is NOT understood to be SIN … which many Christians fail to realize IS sin … they become much more vulnerable to Satan’s evil devices against them. 

Let’s reinforce the point.  Satan full well knows that when Christians begin operating in perpetual thanklessness, it causes God to withdraw various degrees of His blessing and favor from them.  When that happens, Satan’s attacks against them become so much easier for him to execute.

We’ve already read from Hebrews 13:15 that the highest expression of our praise to God is to have an attitude of thankfulness.   When the rest of the world is growing more fearful and lacking in peace, God will be imparting supernatural peace to followers of Jesus Christ, but to get it and keep it, it will require practicing thankfulness on a moment by moment basis.

For the wise, thankfulness is a spiritual weapon to be employed every waking moment on this planet.  Sure it can be hard being thankful at times, and it requires constant diligence on our part to employ this weapon, but whatever effort it takes, it will be greatly beneficial.

No matter WHAT is going on in our life, the Holy Spirit is saying, dear one, to get past our fearfulness, anger, frustration, discouragement, etc., from things that have happened to us … and haul out our weapon of THANKSGIVING and begin employing it as much as we need to eat and sleep!   It needs to be that much a part of our life. 

In the days ahead, we are going to NEED to be using this weapon more than what many have given much thought to in times past … to hold onto any semblance of peace, joy, or confidence that our God has all things under His control, as these end times unfold.  Fear will continue to increase in the hearts of people.  Uncertainty of the future will cause multitudes to have greater emotional stress.  God does not want His people becoming victims of this uncertainty – victims to this stress.  God wants people walking in supernatural peace that only He can give, but for them to get it, they must first make Jesus Christ their Savior and Lord.  Once they do that, they must then learn the wisdom of being thankful as quickly as they can.  Thankless Christians never attain to all that God has available for them in this life … that’s the bottom line.

Many Christians are frustrated in their prayer lives because they have not walked in being thankful.  Being thankless can GREATLY affect our prayers! 

God has the ability to execute a miracle any time He chooses on our behalf.  The difference between seeing Him do one or not may hinge on one solitary issue:  Our attitude of thanksgiving toward Him.

Though God’s mercy and grace and patience transcends limits we often have difficulty comprehending … we can quench the Holy Spirit by failure to obey the following scripture:

Rejoice (praise) always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.  Do not quench the Spirit.  – 1 Thessalonians 5:16-19 (NKJV)

We can quench the Holy Spirit by walking in perpetual thanklessness.  When we quench the Holy Spirit, odds greatly increase that some favor and blessing from God can also get quenched in our lives.   Let us obey all of God’s commands and live wisely and posture ourselves to attain to all that God desires for us in this life.  

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.  – Philippians 4:6-7 (NKJV)