Rabbi’s Reflections – Sunday, January 26, 2025
Shavuah Tov,
“The Power of a Thankful Heart – Part 3”
By Jerry Miller
“Therefore as you received Messiah Yeshua as Lord, so continue to walk in Him…established in your faith…overflowing with thankfulness.” (Colossians 2:6-7, TLV)
“A psalm of thanksgiving. Shout joyfully to Adonai, all the earth…Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise! Praise Him, bless His Name. For Adonai is good. His lovingkindness endures forever…” (Psalm 100:1, 4-5, TLV)
In recent weeks I’ve been talking about the importance of our growing in a posture of thanksgiving. Remember that thanksgiving empowers our soul to thrive, regardless of the adversities we may encounter. Continually giving thanks is key to maintaining a joy-filled heart. Too often, as discussed last time, we allow ourselves to tolerate attitudes that are essentially fleshly alternatives to thanksgiving—attitudes of fear, anxiety, negativity, complaining or envy. Recently I was reading an article written by the late Billy Graham. He wrote, “…nothing turns us into bitter, selfish, dissatisfied people more quickly, than an ungrateful heart. And nothing will do more to restore contentment and the joy of our salvation than a true spirit of thankfulness.”
God’s desire for you and me is that we be tender-hearted people, sensitive to His ways. Such tender-heartedness is nurtured and maintained through a walk of continual praise and thanksgiving. Think about it. The different “fleshly alternatives” we considered in part 2, typically produce the opposite of tender-heartedness, resulting in our hearts growing hardened instead of tender. Sometimes folks might think or say, “well, I just can’t praise God when I’m miserable.” But the problem with such thinking is that we are choosing to be guided and steered based on sense knowledge and emotion rather than faith and truth. Thanksgiving may well be the most basic and foundational expression of faith in our lives. Why? Because every one of us, at different times, can come up with reasons for justifying a lack of thanksgiving in our lives. The thanksgiving that flows from faith serves as spiritual warfare against the ingratitude and complaining that seek to overtake our soul when we go through difficulties and unpleasant things.
We must settle the issue once and for all in our hearts and minds. God is always worthy of our gratitude. Regardless of how we may at times feel, there is never a moment when God is less than worthy of praise and thanksgiving. Why is it that we can always give thanks to Him? The passage above from Psalm 100 tells us. It is because He is good and His lovingkindness never comes to an end. God never, even for a moment, fails to be good and loving toward us. Circumstances may not always be good, which is why our praise and thanksgiving is often a sacrifice—an offering to the Lord. Circumstances will change, but God will never change. He is always good and always worthy. We can absolutely count on this.
Consider for a moment Sha’ul’s words in Philippians 2:14: “Do everything without grumbling or arguing…” To be honest, this passage can leave me a bit uncomfortable as I consider some of my own weaknesses in this area. Sha’ul is talking here about secret grumblings of discontentment—grumblings that no one else may hear, but they arise from a complaining heart in you and me. Paul’s point here is that it is Yeshua who is at work in us, and that is why it’s possible for us to do all things without complaining. So think about it. If anyone had reason to complain based on circumstances, certainly Yeshua did. If anyone had reason to think that life just wasn’t fair, Yeshua did. But He was perfectly submitted to the Father, and He saw that there was a purpose in everything He had to experience. He didn’t complain or grumble. These attitudes were simply not a part of His mindset or vocabulary, as He found His ultimate joy in doing the Father’s will.
Complaining, grumbling and negativity harden us on the inside. Such attitudes never produce life and joy, and they add no value to our lives, even costing us our joy. So, as those who take God’s Word seriously, we must conclude that grumbling and discontentment is never appropriate. It hardens our hearts and robs us of the joy we are privileged to walk in.
So the question is, how is it even possible to walk out this incredibly high standard? It’s possible because Yeshua Himself is alive in us and at work in us to bring the transforming that comes through relationship. As we walk daily with Yeshua, we become more like Yeshua. We spend time with Him, and the result is, we become like Him. Don’t try to make sense of this. It’s a supernatural work that God Himself does. It will never make sense to our natural thinking. I love what David wrote in Psalm 34:6, where He says, “They who looked to Him were radiant, and their faces will never be ashamed.” Complaining and negativity certainly does not leave us radiant, but looking to Him for what He alone can provide and do in our lives—that brings forth a radiance and joy that cannot be stolen from us.
Clearly, this is not an issue of making up a new set of rules for ourselves. Rather, it’s a question of holding up this incredibly radical standard as a goal in our lives, as we seek to be an expression of Yeshua here in this life, by faith. It’s the life of Yeshua being expressed through you and me, as we walk with Him in intimacy and fellowship, allowing Him to shape our hearts to become more like His heart. Next time, I’ll be concluding this series on the power of a thankful heart.
Daily Bread, reading plan by Lars Enarson (https://www.thewatchman.org/)
Sun 26-Jan-2020 26th of Tevet, 5785
Ex 10:1-11 1 Ki 7 Ps 106 Lk 20:1-26 (Eph 5)