Over the next few weeks, here on the Seeking Him devotional blog, we will be focusing on gratitude, thankfulness, and giving thanks to Almighty God Who has so richly blessed us.  As the Scripture passage quoted in this beautiful graphic (made just for us!), we will be joyfully proclaiming our ‘thanksgiving to Him with psalms’.  Over the past few days Ahmee, Ann, Cynda, Laura, and Tina have focused their writing to bring our attention to the following verses.

Praise the Lord! (Hallelujah!)
I will praise and give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart
In the council of the upright and in the congregation.
The works of the Lord are great, sought out by all those who have delight in them.
His work is honorable and glorious, and His righteousness endures forever.
He has made His wonderful works to be remembered;
The Lord is gracious, merciful, and full of loving compassion.
Psalms 111:1-4

Cynda asked us, in The Power of Public Praise to consider this: “Where would we be if David and the other authors of the Bible had not shared their praise with us?  Our knowledge of God would be severely limited.  What if friends or family that had seen God work in their lives—deliver them from trouble and despair—hadn’t shared their praise with us?  Our knowledge of His faithfulness would not be as deep.  If we do not share our praise publicly, we risk limiting someone else’s knowledge of God.”

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Tina gave us a wonderful acronym T.H.A.N.K.S. to help us remember things to be thankful to God for in Expressions of Thanks!

Throne

• We are to bring our request to the throne of the One who can grant them.

Heaven

• When we call upon the name of Jesus, He will take them to our Father as our Intercessor.

Answered

• God will, in His wisdom, answer our prayers.

Noble

• Our thoughts should always focus on what is good and noble. We are to train our thoughts on what is right and pure.

Knowledge

• Our Father will give us a much greater knowledge of His Word. We will want to fill our minds and thoughts with His words, His goodness, His mercy, and His ways.

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In Grateful for His Works, Ann encouraged us to be grateful.  She wrote, “Sisters, it is the will of God for us to be grateful for what He has done.  Each time we should show a grateful heart to the Lord.  Do not murmur when you face adversaries; think of His wondrous works and His care for you night and day.  In fact we need to be grateful and sing new songs to Him…the songs that will be like a sweet aroma to Him.”

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Ahmee asked a really good question in Thankful for Life Itself:  “How often do you thank God for your life?”  She went on to remind us that in Psalm 139:14 David praised God for ‘…making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.’  And that we as human beings who are wonderfully complex.  We know to thank God for all good things.  Therefore, should we not stop to thank God for making us?”

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Laura shared with us her heart in her family’s loss of their little baby, along with a simple reminder of how thankful we are for the little ones in our individual families AND church families in Little Bundles of Thanks:  “…when we dedicate our children to the Lord we are thanking Him for sending us this little bundle of joy that brings love, pain, heartache, and everything else that goes along with it. In the company of other believers, we thank God for this little person and pledge…to teach the child to be a person who loves and honors God through worship and service.”

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Oh, Lord, what joy and privilege we have to come before You singing out our gratitude and thanks for all You have done and are doing for us, Your daughters!  May we reach out to those around us—whether we spend time with them each day or we just ‘happen’ to meet them in the grocery store—sharing with them how good, how kind, how gracious, how merciful, how generous, how compassionate, how forgiving, how wonderful You are!  With our whole hearts may we sing Your praise and give You honor and glory!  Thank You, dear Lord, thank You for Your goodness, Your grace, Your mercy, Your love.  We love You and adore You…and we praise and thank You!  In Jesus’ name, amen.  HalleluJAH!   ♥