UNLEASH THE POWER OF PRAISE AND THANKSGIVING (Cont.)

Thanksgiving simply means appreciation to God, being appreciative of what God has done for you. Whether you recognize it or not, He has done so much for you – protecting you, fighting visible and invisible battles for you, providing for you, teaching you, guiding you, shielding you, lifting you, blessing you and upholding you.

1. One of the things that thanksgiving does very powerfully is that it destroys the mystery of ingratitude and everyone has a dose of ingratitude. How did we acquire it? In Eden – you will see real manifestation of ingratitude in Adam. A perfect God created a perfect man and put him in a perfect environment, gave him Lord Tenancy over the earth with one law. Ingratitude is the foundation of sin, so any time you are thanking God; you are destroying the mystery of ingratitude. The devil’s greatest ambition is what God gave man – to be like the most high. When God decided to create man He said “let us make man in our image, after our likeness …”. He gave man free will to enable him be like God. Your will is your deciding self – that part of you that decides. God put it in man so that man will not be a robot. God wanted someone who will do the right thing out of his own will. Any time you commit sin, what you are doing is that you are casting your vote against God; you are telling Him that He made a mistake in allowing you to have a free will. So the root of any sin is actually ingratitude. Anytime you choose wrongly, you have misplaced value. The first man Adam was so ungrateful that there was no place where he thanked God, he was not a worshipper. But thank God we have a second Adam in Christ Jesus who said my meat is to do the will of my Father. He deliberately yielded His will to that of His Father to fulfill the purpose of God. That was the secret of His success. He humbled Himself to the point of dying on the cross so that you and I can be sons and daughters of the Most High.
2. Delight yourself in the Lord – Psa. 37:4 “delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart”. This is one of the secrets of dissolving stubborn challenges. Celebrate God, yield to the will of the Father, supernatural submission and He will do what no man can do. We see the second Adam confront a challenge that humanly speaking was insurmountable. His friend, Lazarus, had died for four days, a stinking situation. When Jesus got there, He gave thanks and the supernatural power of thanksgiving was released and then He gave a command and Lazarus came back to life. There is no hopeless situation for anyone who has learnt to unleash the power of praise and thanksgiving.
3. Thanksgiving is the will of God. Mal. 2:2 “if ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart to give glory unto my name, saith the LORD of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you …”. Failure to give God thanks attract curses. It is the perfect will of God that we should give Him thanks.
4. Thanksgiving brings increase. Psa. 67:5-6. A serious situation arose after Jesus finished preaching to a large crowd. The people became hungry and Jesus asked his disciples to get food for them. With only few loaves and two fishes, Jesus gave thanks and there was an overflow. The people ate to their satisfaction and there was a leftover of twelve baskets. If you want to see the overflow of the blessings of the Almighty, unleash the power of thanksgiving. Don’t bad mouth anything God gives you, receive it, celebrate God, bless Him, magnify Him and He will do more. Ingratitude fouls your spiritual countenance and that is why it attracts curses.
5. Thanksgiving brings perfection – if you want your joy to be perfected, if you want your blessings to be perfected, even in the midst of the seeming unsatisfactoriness of things, unleash the power of praise and thanksgiving. Apostle Paul and Silas were thrown into the Macedonia prison after being beaten but in the midnight, the power of praise was so intense that an earthquake was released.

If you have the oil, you will lack nothing. One of the things that make the oil to flow is praise and thanksgiving. Ten lepers were healed in Luke 17:11-19. As they acted on Jesus’ instruction, they were healed but only one returned to say thank you to Jesus. He received a second touch which is for perfection; his skin was restored unlike the other nine who went home with scars.

As the year expires, if you want to see all the stubborn challenges confronting you dissolve and disappear, unleash the power of praise and thanksgiving. You will begin to enjoy sweatless victories which will be so comprehensive.

Action Point – Study Psalm 136 and use it to compose your own Psalm.

PRAYERS

• Lord, in any way that I have murmured or grumbled, I am sorry, have mercy upon me and remove every trace of ingratitude from my heart. Make me pure in Jesus name.
• Lord, I stretch my hands to You and I ask You to help me delight in You. I ask You to help me to be one who delights in You. Lord, let Your perfect will be established in my life. I ask You to show me Your mercy, show me Your love and Your kindness in the name of Jesus. Grant me the grace to praise You in all circumstances, in all situations in the name of Jesus. Grant me the grace to always walk with You and to always know that You love me so much that no good thing will you withhold from me. Help me to walk uprightly, in the name of Jesus.
• Heavenly Father, do not allow me to be an enemy of my own miracles/blessings in the name of Jesus.
• Thank You Lord because with You, nothing shall be impossible, there is no mountain You cannot move; there is no challenge You cannot dissolve; there is nothing the enemy has done that You cannot undo, thank You mighty God in Jesus Name.
• Lord, I hand over the remaining part of this year to you and I ask You Oh God to crown this year for me with Your goodness in the name of Jesus. Cause my path to drop abundance in Jesus Name.
• Lord, I thank You for the blessings of yesteryears; from the day I was conceived in my Mother’s womb till date, I proclaim that you have been good to me, thank You Lord. Let the Lord be magnified. Lord, I know that You have pleasure in my prosperity, thank You mighty God, in Jesus name.