TODAY’S DEVOTION (MONDAY 18TH JULY 2022)
“Make a joyful shout to the LORD, all you lands! Serve the LORD with gladness; Come before His presence with singing.
Know that the LORD, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, And into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.
For the LORD is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations.” Psalm 100:1-5 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 199TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE!
This is the day our LORD has made. We shall rejoice and be glad in it. Yes, daily He has been loading us with benefits. We owe Him a lot of gratitude.
We owe Him gratitude for the air in our nostrils, the functionality of our lungs, our hearts and its beat that has been on since we were born.
Can you imagine, even a generator will need to be stopped and serviced so that it can continue working, but our hearts have not stopped beating since the first time they beat while we were in our mother’s wombs. So, we owe Him gratitude.
We owe God gratitude for being able to eat and pass it out as waste. Yes, we owe Him gratitude for the functionality of our excretory system. There are people who depend on dialysis to do that. You will never know how we take that act of God for granted until you observe someone on dialysis.
The first time that hit me was many years ago in Nigeria. I never knew someone can have issue with excretion until then. A woman was brought to me for prayers and when I found out what was wrong, I was stunned.
We need to sit down and repent of taking the ability to excrete without the use of machines for granted.
We heap prayer points on God and complain of this and that but do not see some of these things that constantly call for gratitude.
Someone once said, “I was complaining to God that I have no shoes until I met someone with no legs. Then I cleaned my tears and started thanking God for my legs”
There are some of us that just need to be visiting the Hospital from time to time just to observe. We need to be looking at those who are in need of critical healing just to thank God for our lives and trust God to help them as well.
Often, we allow the good that has not happened to cloud our minds, preventing us from seeing the good that is happening, and making us ungrateful people.
PEOPLE WHO KNOW HOW TO SHOW GRATITUDE TO GOD ENJOY A MIRACLE FROM HIS THRONE WHICH I WILL SHARE SHORTLY.
There is a sweet life you will never know if you are not a man or woman of gratitude.
And talking about gratitude, gratitude in GOD’s kingdom is the quality of being thankful, or a readiness to show appreciation or to return kindness either to GOD or man. Yes, we can return kindness to GOD in so many ways.
We live in very interesting seasons where people have a dangerous sense of entitlement that prevents them from showing gratitude.
When you express gratitude, you demonstrate how grateful you are for something or someone in your life, and respond with feelings of kindness, warmth, and acts of generosity.
Sadly, many do not have this quality. They do not show gratitude for things done to them by others.
They are stingy with everything including showing gratitude. They do not respond with feelings of kindness, warmth or other forms of generosity to people who showed them kindness or did one thing or the other in their lives.
They do not feel indebted to them. You find them transferring the same attitude to God.
It is not easy to be good these days, so when someone is good to you be indebted to them. Show them gratitude and you will be able to show God gratitude also, because any gratitude you claim to be showing to God when you are not indebted to those He may have used to touch your life, is false.
You must be grateful to God by being grateful to those He may be using to touch you with acts of kindness or transform your life positively.
I WANT TO GIVE YOU A GRATITUDE CHALLENGE TODAY.
Send a message of gratitude and if possible, a gift along to three people God may have used to change your life or touch you significantly with acts of kindness. State what they did and express how grateful you are.
I know ingrates will see this as not about them. Please, do not be an ingrate this morning.
An ingrate is someone who does not show proper appreciation or thanks for something that someone has done for them. He or she shows appreciation but not proper appreciation.
If your kind act gets complain and criticism from someone instead of appreciation, that person is an ingrate. If your kind act of buying something significant for someone gets you nothing in return in form of appreciation, you are dealing with an ingrate.
If a person treats you with lack of respect or value while making significant contributions to their lives, you are dealing with an ingrate. You are trying to bless someone who is not thankful for others’ kindness. It will hurt you badly.
Ingrates hurt people and do not go anywhere in life in the long run. They become old bitter people when they get to the evening of their lives. That is why we should not be one.
You could be a wife that a husband has touched, a church member that a pastor has touched, a husband that a wife has touched, a staff that a boss has touched, a child that a parent has touched, a pastor that a member has touched, or whoever, take up this challenge this morning.
Send a message of gratitude and if possible, a gift to three people God has used to change your life or touch you significantly with acts of kindness. State what they did and express how grateful you are. It could open a flood of miracles your way this week or at other times of your life.
That brings us to a major Throne Room Miracle.
Do not forget we are on a 31-Day journey with the Cry of the Spirit on Miracles, Signs and wonders. Today is the 18th day of the journey of faith. Of late we have been looking at the miracles from God’s Throne. When we show gratitude, we position ourselves for a major Throne Room Miracle.
OUR DEVOTIONAL TEXT SAYS;
“Make a joyful shout to the LORD, all you lands! Serve the LORD with gladness; Come before His presence with singing.
Know that the LORD, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, And into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.
For the LORD is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations.” Psalm 100:1-5 NKJV
Making joyful shouts to the LORD, serving Him with gladness, and coming to His presence with singing in gratitude to God has a way of opening the gates or courts of our GOD to us.
These gates are Heavenly portals or entry points between the Spirit realm of God and that of man. They are designed to supply Heavenly treasures from God’s throne room to our lives on earth.
The opening of the gates is the throne room miracle that happens when we are grateful to God. It is the opening of Heavenly portals over a man’s life that usually lead to his life getting blessed. It makes his life a center of amazing acts of God.
It leads to the release of divine interventions whenever they are needed. That is why we shut our Heavens whenever we lead ungrateful lives.
There is so much about this mystery of the Kingdom that cannot be written on a devotional. But some essential things have been shared. Make use of them and your life will be a center of God’s marvelous deeds.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY!
“So they rose early in the morning and went out into the Wilderness of Tekoa; and as they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, “Hear me, O Judah and you inhabitants of Jerusalem: Believe in the LORD your God, and you shall be established; believe His prophets, and you shall prosper.”
And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed those who should sing to the LORD, and who should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army and were saying: “Praise the LORD, For His mercy endures forever.”
Now when they began to sing and to praise, the LORD set ambushes against the people of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah; and they were defeated.
For the people of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of Mount Seir to utterly kill and destroy them. And when they [e]had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, they helped to destroy one another.” 2 Chronicles 20:20-23 NKJV