Say Thank You

“Gratitude is not an option for believers who want to splash in waves of grace...God commands His followers to be thankful. Some spend a lot of time wondering about God's will for their lives. We can be absolutely certain of at least one aspect of His divine will: we are to be thankful! We are to give thanks! In all things!” Ellen Vaughn

“Faith without thankfulness lacks strength and fortitude.” John Henry Jowett

“Thanksgiving is good, but thanks-living is better.” Matthew Henry

“(Why does God) bother to speak to us? The truly staggering answer that the Bible gives to this question is that God’s purpose in revelation is to make friends with us. It was to this end that he created us rational beings, bearing his image, able to think and hear and speak and love; he wanted there to be genuine personal affection and friendship, two-sided, between himself and us—a relation, not like that between a man and his dog, but like that of a father to his child, or a husband to his wife. Loving friendship between two persons has no ulterior motive; it is an end in itself. And this is God’s end in revelation. He speaks to us simply to fulfill the purpose for which we were made; that is, to bring into being a relationship in which he is a friend to us, and we to him, he finding his joy in giving us gifts and we finding ours in giving him thanks”. J I Packer

“Be the one who thanks Jesus. Let others go where they may. You be the one who is grateful...Cultivating a grateful heart is not just an add-on nicety, a civil tip of the hat to God as we steamroll through our day. A posture of purposeful, perpetual thanks to God is absolutely central to Christian character. It gives glory to Him. It is the key defense against Satan's temptations to despair, distrust, dysfunction. It protects us from sin and self. It is the hallmark of heaven. It does not exist in hell. A grateful heart is a gift of grace.” Ellen Vaughn

“When thou has truly thanked the Lord for every blessing sent, but little time will then remain for murmur or lament.” Hannah More

“Fret not. Rejoice always. Do not be anxious. In everything give thanks. Serve the Lord with gladness. Be strong and of good courage. Come before Him with thanksgiving. Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently on Him. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” The Bible (from The Promise – Robert Morgan)

“It is so easy to give thanks for what one naturally chooses, but that does not cover the ‘everything’ of the text...One morning lately, in speaking of some small trouble, I quoted ‘In everything give thanks,’ and at once someone answered ‘But I cannot give thanks for everything.’ Now if our God tells us to do a thing and we say cannot, there is something wrong somewhere, for we all know the words ‘I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me’ - that is, all things commanded. It is treason to say 'I cannot.’ But first we should make sure that we are commanded to do this. The text says give thanks IN everything, not FOR everything. All God's biddings are enablings. We can do that. We will do that.” Amy Carmichael

“No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks.” Ambrose

“Since I know I have nothing I have not received – I can’t even claim the breath in my lungs – all things come from His loving and good hands – all things. I am to be grateful. I must train my mind and my mouth to be perpetually thankful for all that He has given me. God delights in the praise of His people.” BHY

“Whenever you react with praise and thanksgiving for an opportunity to grow more like Jesus in your way of reacting to things, instead of grumbling or feeling self-pity, you will find that that whole situation will be changed into a great blessing.” Hannah Hurnard

“Be eager for more frequent gatherings for thanksgiving to God and for His glory.” Ignatius of Antioch

“One act of thanksgiving when things go wrong with us is worth a thousand thanks when things are agreeable to our inclinations.” Saint John of Avila

“See God in everything, and God will calm and color all that thou doest see! It may be that the circumstances of our sorrows will not be removed, their condition will remain unchanged; but if Christ, as Lord and Master of our life, is brought into our grief and gloom, ‘He will compass us about with songs of deliverance.’ To see HIM, and to be sure that His wisdom cannot err, His power cannot fail, His love can never change; to know that even His direst dealings with us are for our deepest spiritual gain, is to be able to say, in the midst of bereavement, sorrow, pain, and loss, ‘The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’ Nothing else but seeing God in everything will make us loving and patient with those who annoy and trouble us. They will be to us then only instruments for accomplishing His tender and wise purposes toward us, and we shall even find ourselves at last inwardly thanking them for the blessing they bring us. Nothing else will completely put an end to all murmuring or rebelling thoughts.” Hannah W. Smith

“Christian thanksgiving is the life of Christ in the heart — transforming the disposition and the whole character. Thanksgiving must be wrought into the life as a habit—before it can become a fixed and permanent quality. An occasional burst of praise, in the midst of years of complaining, is not what is required. Songs on rare, sunshiny days; and no songs when skies are cloudy—will not make a life of gratitude. The heart must learn to sing always. This lesson is learned only when it becomes a habit which nothing can weaken. We must persist in being thankful. When we can see no reason for praise—we must believe in the divine love and goodness, and sing in the darkness. Thanksgiving has attained its rightful place in us, only when it is part of all our days and dominates all our experiences.” J. R. Miller

“He who can give thanks for a little will always find he has enough.” Anonymous

“If anyone would tell you the shortest, surest way to all happiness – he must tell you to make it a rule to yourself to thank and praise God for everything that happens to you. For it is certain that whatever seeming calamity happens to you, if you thank and praise God for it, you turn it into a blessing. Could you therefore work miracles, you could not do more for yourself than by this thankful spirit, for it heals with a word speaking, and turns all that it touches into happiness. It be the noblest sacrifice that the greatest saint can offer unto God.” William Law

“There are two ways of getting out of a trial. One is to simply try to get rid of the trial, and be thankful when it is over. The other is to recognize the trial as a challenge from God to claim a larger blessing than we have ever had, and to hail it with delight as an opportunity of obtaining a larger measure of divine grace. Thus even the adversary becomes an auxiliary, and the things that seem to be against us turn out to be for the furtherance of our way. Surely, this is to be more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” A. B. Simpson