FBC Daily Devotional – January 20, 2022

Well, good Thursday morning to you. This week is going by quickly, and I hope it's going well for you.

So today we read in our scripture reading in Psalm 9, and this past Sunday in our morning worship service, we opened with the first couple of verses of this psalm, and let me read them to you and then give some thoughts on them.

Psalm 9, verses 1 and 2. The psalmist says this, I will praise you O Lord with my whole heart.

I will tell of all your marvelous works. I will be glad and rejoice in you.

I will sing praise to your name almost high. Now what

I want us to think about is what causes us to be grateful?

I mean in other words, what are the things that we itemize when we say

I am thankful? For what are we grateful? You know,

I think having a having a grateful heart is a conscious choice that you and I need to make.

I don't think we naturally gravitate toward a heart of gratitude and thought and thankfulness.

I think we are too easily distracted by, you know, things we want, things that we think we need, that we don't consciously stop and think about what we have to be grateful for.

But I think we need to develop that discipline of a grateful heart.

I believe I've shared this before that one of the spiritual disciplines of my own daily routine, and I don't share this because I think

I'm very good at it as I'm not, but I was challenged a long time ago to write down three things every day that I'm grateful for.

And so as part of my devotions after I've read the scriptures, I have a little journal and I take the time to do that.

What are three things from the previous 24 hours that I'm thankful for? And I have to force myself to do that.

And that helps to build, I think, a conscious gratitude, a heart of gratitude.

I got a long, long way to go in developing that, however. Nevertheless, what

I find interesting here is the focus of the praise or the gratitude that's expressed in these couple of verses.

And I think this can be helpful to us because when we think of what do

I have to be thankful for, we can be very self -centered in that gratitude, looking at my level of satisfaction about something or the pleasure that I've received from something or the comfort that I'm enjoying or the gifts that I've received.

I mean the gifts of food or shelter, whatever, you know, I can just all my attention can be focused on things like that that are very self -oriented.

But notice how the psalmist begins this psalm of praise. He says, I will praise you,

O Lord, with my whole heart. I will tell of your marvelous works.

And he goes on to say, I will be glad and rejoice in you. I will sing praise to your name.

In other words, in other words, his focus, the focus of his gratitude is on the character of God and his wonderful works.

So one of the things that I've I've been trying to do lately in this list of things that I'm grateful for is to think about some attribute or quality of God that stands out in the last 24 hours that I've noticed that I can pay particular attention to and be grateful for.

I can praise him. I can praise him for that he is long -suffering. I'm thankful that God is long -suffering.

I'm grateful that God is patient. I'm grateful that he is merciful.

I'm grateful that he is gracious. I'm grateful that he is all -knowing.

I'm grateful that he is powerful. I'm grateful that he is wise. I'm grateful that he orders my steps and on and on and on.

Where we think about the character of God, I'm grateful for his love.

I'm grateful for the things he hates. I'm grateful for the revelation of his words, some of his marvelous works.

What are the works that God has done? I'm grateful that he provides for his own.

I'm grateful that he protects me from dangers that I don't even know about. I'm grateful for the gracious gift of salvation and the work of Christ and on and on you can go.

And I think it's helpful for us as we seek to develop a grateful heart to focus attention on the character of God that we have to be thankful for and the marvelous works of God that display his might and his power.

So let's be grateful people. Let's be grateful for our God, for who he is and for what he's done.

So Father, all of us, I'm sure, have a long way to go into developing conscious, consistent hearts of gratitude this day in and day out where we're just always grateful people.

Lord, this may be a starting point for us to focus our attention on you, what you are like, on what you like, to focus on your works, the marvelous works that you have done, to look at these things and then to indeed be grateful.

Help us, O Lord, in this developing this grateful heart. We pray in Jesus name.

Amen. All right, so your assignment when you turn this off, stop and think what are three things that you have to be grateful for?

What are three things about your God that you can be thankful for? All right. Have a good time doing that and trust