Let somebody shout hallelujah! I think we owe it a duty to God to appreciate Him for the benefit of life; if you don’t believe me, all you need to do is just to take a brief walk on what has transpired between 1st and 31st of last month, the number of casualties, people who never in their wildest imaginations believed that they would not see the month of August. A songwriter says ‘count your blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done’.
So if you are in the house this morning and indeed God has done something for you, I want you to put your hands together for Jesus. Praise the Lord!
There’s a saying in the part of the country where I come from that says “if you don’t know how to think, you will not be able to know how to give thanks”, in other words, it takes thinkers to give praise to God because thinkers always think about the things that has happened, the things that God has done, the things that they longed for, the things that they prayed for and how God has resolved the matter. So today, we are come again to exercise our power of thinking particularly with respect to the grace to be alive, and I pray that today, God Almighty will give us that act of gratitude to Him in the name of Jesus.
Father in heaven, we just want to say thank You this morning for giving us life, for giving us hope because the Bible says to him that is joined to the living, there is hope; thank You for the gifts of hope, it doesn’t matter the situation, we still have this assurance that tomorrow will be alright, accept our thanks in Jesus name.
Thank You for giving us this day, thank You for giving us this beautiful opportunity, thank You because we are here Lord Almighty God to count our blessings and of course to give You corresponding praise, and we know what lies in our praise is that opportunity to receive more and more from You, therefore Lord, as we praise You today Father Almighty, we ask Lord that You will do more for us in Jesus name.
Lord Almighty God, in the hymnal we have just sang about so many prophecies, You said the weary (for Instance) will find eternal rest; in another line, You said dead and curse will be no more, and on and on like that, I pray in the name of Jesus that as we open our mouth Lord Almighty God, in praise of Your name this morning, let all Your promises find fulfillment in our lives in Jesus name.
We pray God of heaven that our first will not be the last in the mighty name of Jesus. And we pray Lord that as we offer You praise today, that our praise, Lord Almighty God will by speed enter into the holies of the holiest in the name of Jesus. And Lord Almighty we pray that by same, we will receive positive report today.
Thank You for everything that You have done, thank You for the past seven months, thank You because You never allowed them to swallow us, it is by Your grace that we are standing and we have come to count our blessings, Father take all the glory, take all the honor, and take all the adoration.
Father, it’s our month of a new beginning, we pray that new beginning of joy, new beginning of peace, new beginning of health, new beginning of breakthrough, new beginning of accomplishment, new beginning of promotion, new beginning of favor, new beginning of success, new beginning of growth – personal growth, cooperate growth, spiritual growth and opportunities shall be our portion in Jesus name.
Please visit us in this service and take all the glory. I pray for all Your children who have been faithful in the payments of their tithes and in the giving of their offerings, Lord, that in blessing You will bless them in Jesus name, and unto them all You will give a delightsome land, blessed be Your name forever, in Jesus wonderful name we have prayed.
Good morning daddies, mommies, brothers and sisters, good to have you in the house this morning, I thank God for your beautiful faces, I pray that this month will bring you great and lots of testimonies in the name of Jesus Christ. Happy new month of August!
Once again we welcome every one of you, it’s a good thing for us to be alive and of course it’s a great thing for us to be here and I want to congratulate every one of us of the momentous occasion of the 72nd annual convention of the Redeemed Christian Church of God titled ‘Heaven’. The whole essence of our salvation is all about heaven, that is the ultimate goal of every believer and I pray this morning for you and for myself that we will not miss our target in Jesus name.
So it has started with the Ministers’ conference, you’ll see quite a number of our ministers are not even here, and some of us have been driving in the middle of the night but thank God for His grace and strength for us.
Psalm 100:1 – 5 “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. 2 Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing. 3 Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. 5 For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations”. Let the generation of the people in the house shout hallelujah!
Today, I will be talking to us very quickly on the theme, ‘Enter His Gates With Thanksgiving’. Once again, much as I would have loved to take one or two choruses just to serve as an appetizer for the exhortation, but time is not my friend and is not our friend altogether; and before I proceed, let me also say this, I know the announcement will re-echo it; there will be no weekly services here this week; no Prayer Chain tomorrow, no Bible study on Tuesday, no Faith Clinic on Thursday, before we congregate again here will be next week Sunday, so come next week Sunday, we’ll run the full complement of our services, so make sure you come. But Monday till Friday, there will be no service here, we expect that by then, many of us will be at the campground or at least you’ll hook up by whatever means to be part of it and the Lord will bless you as you do so in Jesus name.
So brethren, thanksgiving is a necessity and it’s a necessity because when you look at the scriptures, it says enter into His gate with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise: be thankful unto Him and bless His holy name. So thanksgiving is a necessity and every necessity (you can say) is a command; it is an act of being grateful for what that God has done, and thanksgiving at its core is actually an expression of gratitude or appreciation.
Thanksgiving is a virtue that resonates deeply across cultures, tribes and faith, and I want to say this morning that gratitude is not merely a courteous acknowledgement of blessings, but rather, it’s a profound recognition of the divine benevolence that permeates every aspect of our lives.
In Lamentation 3: 22, the Bible says it is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because of His compassion that faileth not; and verse 23 says they are new every morning. So the mercy of God and the compassion of God are daily renewed; we all have our motor vehicle licenses, insurance premium that are renewable on yearly basis as the case may be, but as far as God’s mercy and compassion are concerned, they are renewable on daily basis.
So you are here today because God in His benevolence has decided to renew your own, and you’ll find out that it was not everybody as at today that had his/her own renewed. It says it is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed because of His compassion that faileth not, they are new every morning, (it says) great is Your faithfulness.
So the question today is why must we give thanks to God?
- It is giving credit to God. I learnt some things some years ago, a man said
bright ideas is where no one struggles for credit; in organizations, in institutions, when people do things and get good results, when you see bright ideas, they don’t bother, they are not like many of us who want to let people know ‘I did it, I am responsible, if I had not brought that idea, we would probably not have achieved the result’.
No, bright ideas will not bother, they are only concerned about outcome, good result; but when you deliberately give credit to God by thanking Him, God takes special note of it.
A man of God said your tank will not be full until you learn to be thankful; what makes your tank to be full, what makes you to have more than enough is your ability and decision to give thanks to God, because when you give thanks, invariably you are giving credit back to Him. In Psalm 69, we are told that thanksgiving honors and magnifies God; I pray today that in the life of every one of us, the Lord will be honored and magnified in Jesus name. It’s simply celebrating all that He is and of course, the wonderful things that He does.
- Thanksgiving is the reason why we are alive, Psalm 50:23, “Whoso offereth
praise glorifieth me: and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God”; my prayer today is that God will show you the way of salvation in the name of Jesus Christ, but you must offer Him praise because praise glorifies Him, and to him that order his conversation, (when you talk about conversation, you talk about your speeches, what you say, and thanksgiving, praise, worship, come from the mouth). If you order your conversation aright, then He said I will show you the salvation of God.
- Thanksgiving produces multiplication, John 6:7 & 11-13, “7 Philip
answered him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little. 11 And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would.
12 When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. 13 Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten”.
You know this story, the people came to Jesus, after sharing the word and Jesus being the compassionate Person the He was and He is, He said look, we cannot ask these people to go, go and get them food and the people said haha, even if we have the whole of this – it cannot take care of these people, but again somebody said there’s someone with five loaves and maybe two fishes here
They commanded it to be brought, the Bible says He gave thanks, and that singular act led to unimaginable multiplication; He fed the crowd and they were left with 12 basket loads of fragments. What we are just trying to say is that thanksgiving has the effect, the glorious effect of multiplying your blessings. I pray that as we thank God today, whatever little resource that you have in your hand, the Lord will multiply it for you in Jesus name.
- Thanksgiving is an attitude of honor, Proverbs 3:9, “Honour the Lord with
thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase”: brethren, everything is from God; and Psalm 4 says the earth is of the Lord and the fullness thereof.
According to Apostle Paul, (he said), for Him you have been enriched in every way. Tell me what you have that was not given to you…
Very shortly before I go, in 1st Corinthians 1:4 & 5, Apostle said “I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given to you by Jesus Christ; that in everything you are enriched by Him, in all utterance, and knowledge”. My prayer for every one of us this morning is that God will enrich you in every area and in knowledge in the mighty name of Jesus.
So you must brace up for thanksgiving this morning, give glory to God, give honor to God, give credit to God; we are alive today all by His grace and mercy, none of us has control over his/her life. You can be in Aso Rock and yet, death can enter, it has happened in the past; you can be in a bunker, yet death can just come unannounced, so we are all we are, all by the grace of God and I pray that as we take time to praise God, to celebrate His goodness today, God Almighty will do more and more for us all in Jesus name.
