Taking It to Work:
How many times have you said to yourself, “I want to be stronger in my spiritual walk; I want to grow”? We all desire it, but we have all experienced times in our lives when we let prayer fall to the wayside, or our daily quiet time or devotionals lose their daily traction. We may forget, get sidetracked, or just fall out of our routine, and before we know it, we realize we have to “get back into it”, again. We are reminded from our readings today, there is a secret to increasing our spiritual desire, and that comes from a habit of being thankful.
When it comes to best spiritual fuel, calamity and thankfulness are the two leaders for developing spiritual horsepower in our lives. When things go very wrong, like it or not, we do grow quickly, as we tend to hit our knees quickly. The other way, the far better way, is deep gratitude, but we’ll never get there if we don’t stop on a regular basis, and count our blessings.
When things are going right, or even wrong, we tend to draw closer to Him if we can switch our mind to gratitude, and whenever we draw close to Him, we grow spiritually…but that is only if we take the time to count those blessings,
If we don’t set some time aside to contemplate and thank God for all His provision and blessing in our lives, especially remembering the blessing of His rescue and adoption of us as His sons and daughters, we can easily lose the follow-on spiritual desire to read His Word, dedicate our time to meeting with Him in prayer, and lose the growth that surrounds a person that is truly walking in gratitude.
Gen 39:5 (ESV) – From the time that he made him overseer in his house and over all that he had, the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake; the blessing of the Lord was on all that he had, in house and field.
Colossians 2:6-7 (ESV) – Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
Psalm 103:2 (ESV) – Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits,
1 Thess 5:16-18 (ESV) – Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
Ps 9:1 (ESV) – I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.
Listening to the Holy Spirit (Rhema):
There is no greatness in sloth. Only those who diligently seek and find will feel pleasure in their labor from their Lord. Mountains of gold will not bring the contentedness of heart bought with honest labor in a place blessed by your God. It will be blessed, set aside and holy, because you bring My light and the attitude of He who has been saved from a great calamity. Your rescue allows flow of your gratitude, and the light shown from such a life brings light to even the darkest places. To not rejoice, is to not put effort into the meditation of your narrow escape down a narrow way, provided by My hand. The sloth thinks only of things present, unmotivated by what lies behind or ahead, but the diligent are thankful for the gift given, and are excited to follow Me into tomorrow. He who has a thankful heart brings health to his bones, and blessing to his home and labor. Do not be lazy in your meditation of your blessing, and let not the sloth hide My light in you.
Our work, family, health, salvation, and a thousand other things are gifts directly from the hand of our loving God. If we were to physically list, even partially those things, and think about what our life would be without them, our head can’t help but to bow to Him.
Try it. Bring the air of your thankfulness into work today, the whole place will seem better, and you will grow spiritually, as His Word works through your gratitude, today.
